It’s always surprising to me when people are surprised that they fail at making change from the inside.

Moral suasion, offers of training and expertise, poignant data about corporate culture — these are all just nice-to-haves for the average startup founder who attracted a bunch of VC on the strength of his personality, the ability to draw a hockey stick, and the bullish performance on the financial metrics that are more likely than not the sole KPIs he’s held to by his board. And I use the male pronoun because that’s where 97% of all VC goes.

How many of your concerns did you enshrine in the term sheets you put in front of Uber? How much of your follow-on investment was contingent on Travis & Co performing on what, in 2010 and even more so in 2017, should just be commonplace best HR practices? How many rounds did you participate in before the tension between your ideals and the reality of this portfolio company became unbearable? What are you going to do about it — with your money, that is, not just your mouth.

Maybe the bad PR will drive more users to the competition. Maybe that’ll depress the valuation ahead of the next round or the IPO. Maybe your letter will even shame Travis into reaching out to you.

But expecting a leopard to change its spots when that’s what we’ve been lavishly rewarding it for — and profiting from — is just wishful thinking.