Does "Kingmaking" actually work?

THE TERM "kingmaking" has a medieval ring to it, which is fitting: venture capitalists have begun behaving less like investors and more like feudal lords, anointing monarchs and then daring the market to disagree. The strategy — flooding a single startup with enough capital to make it appear dominant before it has proved much of anything — is not new. What has changed is the audacity of its timing, and the institutional machinery that now exists to make the prophecy self-fulfilling.