Boston Globe
The media may be inadvertantly misrepresenting Mitt Romney’s career at Bain Capital, but the presidential candidate isn’t complaining. The Massachusetts company that’s become a point of contention in Romney’s quest for the Oval Office is a private equity firm. However, many in the media have mislabeled it with the term venture capital. There is a difference between these two types of businesses, namely that while venture capital is usually a job-creation industry which invests in a company from its early stages and profits off making it a success, private equity firms buy companies—using loans—for the purpose of selling them for a profit. The latter, though profitable for the private-equity firm, is not typically known to benefit businesses.