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The 99% (of startups)
81–90 of 176 posts
Re: The 99% (of startups)
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's what I'm trying (and apparently failing) to get at: For Twitch, being gamers who also ran a video streaming site was a huge unfair advantage, because they were in a position to recognize a trend as it just started. There was no reason, if you look at statistics or data, to believe that this was a combination worth a billion dollars - that moment had never happened before in the history of business, and will pr…
> For Twitch, being gamers who also ran a video streaming site was a huge unfair advantage, because they were in a position to recognize a trend as it just started. There was no reason, if you look at statistics or data, to believe that this was a combination worth a billion dollars There was no reason not to believe the opposite either. I think I have a problem with your use of the word 'unfair'. Unfair to me means…
I think that you're taking the emotional tone of my message differently than I intended it because I use the word "unfair" differently from how many people do. To me, it just means "Something not shared by many people; a trait that may gain you certain privileges that not everyone possesses." It's a valueless judgment, because I've already come to terms with business (and the world) being unfair. I could use the word "unique" instead, but chose "unfair" both because unfair connotes privileges (which we are certainly talking about here) and because Peter Thiel has talked in the same terms about what makes business go round.
I certainly don't harbor any sour grapes toward Zuckerburg - that is the nature of business, he was prepared & prescient enough to capitalize on his opportunity and I was not. And it's not like life has turned out badly for me in the meantime anyway. :-)
Re: The 99% (of startups)
#83It's depressing that Amazon paid four times as much for this business as Bezos did for the Washington Post.
27 million people watched the League of Legends world championship[1] which is on par (or better) than MLB & NBA championships. It's pretty clear eSports is going to be huge. Having the biggest streaming site/brand will be valuable and doesn't seem crazy in that perspective. [1] http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/page/instantawesome-leagueof...
It's a $250M business globally according to a research firm that focuses on the eSports industry:
http://www.newzoo.com/insights/esports-in-2015-engagement-gr...
That's tiny. If you took a pitch for an eSports startup to a VC with that total market size they'd laugh you out of the office...
So while the 27 million viewers sounds impressive and shows up in the pitch deck of every eSports startup, it's not translating to significant revenue (yet).
Re: The 99% (of startups)
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> For Twitch, being gamers who also ran a video streaming site was a huge unfair advantage, because they were in a position to recognize a trend as it just started. There was no reason, if you look at statistics or data, to believe that this was a combination worth a billion dollars There was no reason not to believe the opposite either. I think I have a problem with your use of the word 'unfair'. Unfair to me means…
I think that you're taking the emotional tone of my message differently than I intended it because I use the word "unfair" differently from how many people do. To me, it just means "Something not shared by many people; a trait that may gain you certain privileges that not everyone possesses." It's a valueless judgment, because I've already come to terms with business (and the world) being unfair. I could use the word…
Fair enough :) It would make communication easier if you put such creative uses of words up front. I'm not familiar with Peter Thiels use of the word 'unfair', but the doesn't get to creatively re-define the words we use either.
Unfair has a very negative connotation.
> And it's not like life has turned out badly for me in the meantime anyway. :-)
Excellent :)
Re: The 99% (of startups)
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The question isn't whether VCs are brilliant according to some absolute metric. The question is whether they deploy capital better than random chance. The numbers show that top ten VCs consistently do. Does it? If you have enough gamblers in a high stake casino where the house hasn't stacked the deck, some of them will seem to consistently win in comparison to the other players. Similarly, a very small percentage o…
This analysis breaks down if the top ten outperform the market after you've started watching them. If that's the case (which for top ten VCs it is), the math suggests it isn't a "million quarters" situation.
That would need to hold for substantially all of the "top" outperforming our expectation of a naive person with the same deal-flow.
Re: The 99% (of startups)
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, for people upholding certain cultural values like me, which are not exactly too far-fetched, it's pretty obvious why an era where people watch live gaming in droves is depressing when contrasted with the decline of journalism. I'd rather there was a citizenry that read the Washington Post more than watching others play video games (or NFL or whatever) more. Maybe people would have a better handle of politics, a…
Maybe somebody will come up with an esport that incorporates current events that is also entertaining enough for a lot of people to watch.
If people only watch/read stuff because it's "entertaining", that's already a loss to culture and democracy.
Especially since entertaining gets all the more Huxley-an and Kardashian standards all the time.
Re: The 99% (of startups)
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, for people upholding certain cultural values like me, which are not exactly too far-fetched, it's pretty obvious why an era where people watch live gaming in droves is depressing when contrasted with the decline of journalism. I'd rather there was a citizenry that read the Washington Post more than watching others play video games (or NFL or whatever) more. Maybe people would have a better handle of politics, a…
If you see inefficiency in the awareness of citizens. Do something about it. Disrupt. Clearly the Washington Post is not catching enough consumers.
I don't hold the idea that it's the news sources fault. Even with all the crap on mainstream media, there are more than enough excellent sources (including free) and a lower than ever barrier to access them.
So, I consider it like I would consider a lack of caring of the environment, or for helping people in the streets, or inversely, an increase in racism etc: as the fault of the people not caring -- not of others that failed to convince them to care.
The #1 thing for a citizen is personal responsibility.
Re: The 99% (of startups)
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This gives an interesting glimpse into the prognostication abilities of supposedly brilliant VC's. The question isn't whether VCs are brilliant according to some absolute metric. The question is whether they deploy capital better than random chance. The numbers show that top ten VCs consistently do.
Take 1000 people, have each predict a coin flip 10 times. The top 10 players will have predicted way better than random chance would have you believe. Why several of them are even 10 for 10, they must have special prediction powers! ;) Grow the player base, increase the number of predictions, you'll end up with some real super-stars who just go on winning. They'll probably write books and lecture about their techniqu…
Enough time and volume should eventually show whose truly good (statistically).
Re: The 99% (of startups)
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, for people upholding certain cultural values like me, which are not exactly too far-fetched, it's pretty obvious why an era where people watch live gaming in droves is depressing when contrasted with the decline of journalism. I'd rather there was a citizenry that read the Washington Post more than watching others play video games (or NFL or whatever) more. Maybe people would have a better handle of politics, a…
The two aren't mutually exclusive. Humans have pursued leisure for probably as long as there have been humans.
Sure, but that's in theory. In practice we have tons of uninformed people -- which one can see not just in personal encounters but in all kinds of polls and research --, and a heavy increase in shallow entertainment.
Re: The 99% (of startups)
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This gives an interesting glimpse into the prognostication abilities of supposedly brilliant VC's. The question isn't whether VCs are brilliant according to some absolute metric. The question is whether they deploy capital better than random chance. The numbers show that top ten VCs consistently do.
Take 1000 people, have each predict a coin flip 10 times. The top 10 players will have predicted way better than random chance would have you believe. Why several of them are even 10 for 10, they must have special prediction powers! ;) Grow the player base, increase the number of predictions, you'll end up with some real super-stars who just go on winning. They'll probably write books and lecture about their techniqu…
Explain Berkshire Hathaway for me then, please.