why a doubtful investor understands hope and risk

Venture capital and falling in love have more in common than either would like to admit.

Both are decisions made on the basis of a future that does not yet exist. You are not investing in what the company is. You are investing in what it might become. You are not loving who the person is at this moment. You are committing to who you believe they can be, and to who you might both become together. In both cases, the evidence available at the moment of commitment is radically insufficient to justify the commitment. That is the point. If the evidence were sufficient, it wouldn't be love. It wouldn't be venture. It would be procurement.

Both require you to make your decision before you have the information that would make it safe. Both carry the real possibility of catastrophic failure. Both ask you to put something you cannot afford to lose, time, money, and emotional self into a future that exists only as a shared belief. And in both cases, the willingness to do this without a guarantee is not recklessness. It is the only way the thing works.