Plus, a sizable chunk of its reported returns have been realized by selling licenses to its own investors, which are big technology companies.

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To focus our analysis on actual returns, we looked primarily at companies that achieved first investment and realized an exit in the past decade.

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Of course if they had tried to open a bank account for the partnership, they would have realized they needed an EIN, which might have clued them in to the fact that partnerships are supposed to file returns.

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