It could be argued that VC involves the building of technology businesses, rather than simply investing in a hands off manner. It's a fine line, but the famous VCs that come to my mind (Doerr, Andreessen) help mentor and grow a company, and similar financiers (Buffett, Soros) are more industry analysts and money managers. It's a gross simplification, but it may be what they were thinking.

You could make the same argument about a lot of private equity - that tends to involve the restructuring/managing of various brick&mortar.