It's easy to get emotional about investment opportunities in a partnership. "This company is mine, so if people don't like it, then it reflects badly on me personally." Really the goal is treating the companies objectively, but that's hard for people (especially successful people with egos) to do when they get involved/deep with a potential investment. This leads to a less honest dialogue and likely decisions based on emotion and momentum, rather than keeping objective through the investment evaluation process.
this dynamic is compounded by the career importance of getting deals done and seeing done deals succeed. As another poster mentioned, deals drive reputation and career path. As a result, your deals do reflect on you, and have a very clear impact on you personally... hard not to get emotionally involved in that situation. The only firms I've seen where this doesn't happen avoid the deals -> promotion dynamic, but this sort of firm structuring feels very rare.
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