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The Refragmentation

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Refragmentation

#431

Post by pjmorris »

pravda wrote: post #305
Thomas_Lord wrote: post #263

A lot of this essay seems pretty fast and loose with history to me. I hope nobody passively accepts this as an accurate account of social, economic, or governmental history from the Great Depression, through WWII, the mid-20th century, through to today. Perhaps a ycombinator readership can appreciate a telling example of the problems is in Graham's account of IBM's decision not to exclusively license PC-DOS. Per Grah…

You've got it backwards. He is right and you are the one who is wrong. Sorry. You really thing IBM thought, "wow, we are making so much money with these PC things ... better turn them into a commodity so our profit margins will go away!" I forget how much the original XT cost, something like $2K or so? The margins on that must have been incredible.

I'm with Thomas_Lord... IBM's PC division took a radically open stance with the PC market. I remember being astonished to see the circuit diagrams in the IBM 5150 Technical Reference manual, but understood the point to be that IBM wanted to make it easy to build compatible hardware and software. They reversed their stance - and lost their leadership - with the second-generation MicroChannel and PCjr architectures, largely due to the profit margin problem you identify.

Re: The Refragmentation

#432

Post by Zigurd »

wozniacki wrote: post #361
Zigurd wrote: post #175

It's a very American take on fragmentation and cohesion. The idea of wars creating cohesion is only valid in big, powerful, victorious nations. In Germany, defeat resulted in the rejection of nationalism. If you don't live in a great and powerful nation, or if you don't think your nation is as great as advertised, you might not miss cohesion on national lines. Good thing PG is a realist: "we'd be better off thinking…

I understand that Germany is no small country (even if much smaller than the United States) and thus does not thereby have one single national mood. However what is the general sentiment of the peoples there about where the German republic as a monolithic entity is headed, given the recent developments? Are people generally optimistic or are there significant pockets of dissenting populaces who heavily disagree with…

That is a very complex question. I suppose the relevant part of the answer, relative to your question, might be that more Germans are forgetting about why nationalism was bad.

The US escaped being crippled by GWoT costs. no lessons learned. It may take President Trump to teach the lesson.

Re: The Refragmentation

#433

Post by r2dnb »

lsc wrote: post #430
r2dnb wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes you got it all, now the next logical step is : "Stop being a technical person only", this is what PG is saying. My advice is keep doing your stuff, but aggressively start building your product-based business on the side. I encourage you to bookmark my blog and read the categories : "Startups", and "Software Engineering" (coming very soon) for free and valuable information. In 2016, there'll be new essays almost d…

>My advice is keep doing your stuff, but aggressively start building your product-based business on the side. I've been trying to do that for the last decade. I apparently have what it takes to do rather better than rent-a-coder, but my business skills aren't nearly enough to be "opportunity cost profitable" - I can make rent, but I'm not paying myself nearly what one of the local big companies would. Hell, right now…

If you've done it once you can do it twice.

I wouldn't go back to college, I actually dropped out from a top tier college 4 months before completing my MSc. To me there's only one good reason an informed entrepreneur would go to college : buy the alumni directory in order to have leads - not a job.

You become good at things by doing them often, do more business. Work on your business 2 to 5 hours every day and hold yourself accountable. I don't believe in MVPs but I believe in flexible revenue models, initially iterate this model as fast as you can.

http://read.reddy.today/read/4/flexible-revenue-model-vs-mvp...

I'll quote Donald J. Trump "Most entrepreneurs fail because they fail to see their business as their business school".

Re: The Refragmentation

#434

Post by sawwit »

ignasl wrote: post #408
sawwit wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not what OP is saying.

This is exactly what he was saying. I just put it this way to show how absurd his idea is if we follow through with it till the end.

Nonsense, please quit that strawmanning. Reducing the pace of consumer technological progress to the benefit of more equality would very likely beneficial for humanity; and it does not imply returning to underdeveloped times (assuming it would reduce it significantly in the first place).

Re: The Refragmentation

#435

Post by lsc »

r2dnb wrote: post #433
lsc wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>My advice is keep doing your stuff, but aggressively start building your product-based business on the side. I've been trying to do that for the last decade. I apparently have what it takes to do rather better than rent-a-coder, but my business skills aren't nearly enough to be "opportunity cost profitable" - I can make rent, but I'm not paying myself nearly what one of the local big companies would. Hell, right now…

If you've done it once you can do it twice. I wouldn't go back to college, I actually dropped out from a top tier college 4 months before completing my MSc. To me there's only one good reason an informed entrepreneur would go to college : buy the alumni directory in order to have leads - not a job. You become good at things by doing them often, do more business. Work on your business 2 to 5 hours every day and hold y…

so... tell me, are you making more from selling your 'how to be an entrepreneur' stuff as you would from working full time as a programmer at a top-tier bay area company?

My experience is that getting to that level of revenue is pretty easy. Anyone can sell something if it's actually a good deal. Getting to the point where you can actually pay yourself that much? pretty difficult. My observation is that most people who got to that level as entrepreneurs got there more through the contacts they had than through their technical skills they had. Of course, not all; I can certainly come up with counterexamples to that rule.

Working at a big company, on the other hand? in my experience? it's really pretty easy.

most of the value of college, yes, is the contacts. But having a list of names is to contacts what one of those scammer emails promising to wire you money is to having a bunch of money actually in your bank accounts.

It follows then that if I'm right that it's mostly about contacts and the assumptions people make about you, you would have gotten nearly all the value you could have gotten from your college experience if you quit four months early.

Re: The Refragmentation

#436

Post by jholman »

mindslight wrote: post #191
lkrubner wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if economics is darwinian" How can economics be Darwinian? The outcome of economic interactions is not a zero sum, whereas a lion who kills and eats an antelope is engaged in a zero-sum interaction. The antelope gets nothing out of it. As a point of contrast, if you buy a car from Toyota, you have not harmed Toyota, nor has Toyota harmed you (hopefully). It is theoretically possible, when humans engage in trade, for…

> a lion who kills and eats an antelope is engaged in a zero-sum interaction When we apply economic thinking, this interaction is actually not zero sum - antelopes in general benefit from the signal that they need to be faster.

I agree that predation is not zero sum.

The antelope loses its life. The lion gains nourishment for a week.

Clearly the total number of utils in the system has decreased.

Re: The Refragmentation

#437

Post by Swannie »

golergka wrote: post #36
rsync wrote: post #3

"Obviously the spread of computing power was a precondition for the rise of startups." If you live in San Francisco (or are visiting) you can visit the USS Pampanito - a retired WWII submarine.[1] One thing I think you will notice is the manufacturers plaques attached to every little piece of equipment in the submarine ... every one of them the plaque of some tiny little supplier that you have never heard of . Some l…

That seems to be just small businesseses, not startups. Startups either go Facebook or go bust, they're not created to stay stable at small scale.

You've created a false dichotomy, leaving out a major "Startup" class: get acquired. There are also many other options.

"Startups" in this context exist to get VC's an acceptable exit.

Re: The Refragmentation

#438

Post by r2dnb »

lsc wrote: post #435
r2dnb wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you've done it once you can do it twice. I wouldn't go back to college, I actually dropped out from a top tier college 4 months before completing my MSc. To me there's only one good reason an informed entrepreneur would go to college : buy the alumni directory in order to have leads - not a job. You become good at things by doing them often, do more business. Work on your business 2 to 5 hours every day and hold y…

so... tell me, are you making more from selling your 'how to be an entrepreneur' stuff as you would from working full time as a programmer at a top-tier bay area company? My experience is that getting to that level of revenue is pretty easy. Anyone can sell something if it's actually a good deal. Getting to the point where you can actually pay yourself that much? pretty difficult. My observation is that most people w…

I have a SaaS startup, my "how to be an entrepreneur stuff" are free ;)

The answer is no ; as for today. But I believe that the difference between an entrepreneur and an employee is the number of hours an entrepreneur is willing to work for free. That being said, I also expect to start cashing in and make 5 figures a month by the end of this month.

I agree that contacts are key but I also feel you don't have the right perspective here. Business is all about contacts. Even employees have contacts. The key thing is what you do with these contacts and how you seek them.

Reading your comment, I have a sense that you believe a bit too much in perception, luck, and in general passive opportunity. Being an entrepreneur is about influencing people and choosing your destiny, that's why most people do it. If you think like you think, even with the right contacts you probably won't make it as an entrepreneur.

Sorry if there was a communication issue, I don't think the only thing to take from college are contacts. I learned many stuff there. I actually left when I decided I learnt everything I was seeking there and it was no longer worth paying money for it.

What I was saying was that when you are a real entrepreneur, college credentials don't really matter for you.

Well, my impression is that what you really want is security and a constant flow of high income. However what I want is to make the impact I decided to make on the world and become rich by doing so. I'd 100 times prefer to have 50$ left after paying my bills by developing my ventures, than 6000$ left by having a 50 hours a week corporate job.

It's not only about money for me, it's also about how I make it. I want my wealth to be the result of my entrepreneurial success, it's in my DNA, I am driven by that. I refused several CTO positions, and resigned days after being promoted to certain roles that you seem to be aiming for.

As far as my career is concerned, I don't do it for the money, I do it for the success and I hold myself accountable to reach this success. This success is achieving wealth by delivering the unique value I can deliver to the market, using my unique insights and my unique worldview.

Re: The Refragmentation

#439

Post by lsc »

r2dnb wrote: post #438
lsc wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so... tell me, are you making more from selling your 'how to be an entrepreneur' stuff as you would from working full time as a programmer at a top-tier bay area company? My experience is that getting to that level of revenue is pretty easy. Anyone can sell something if it's actually a good deal. Getting to the point where you can actually pay yourself that much? pretty difficult. My observation is that most people w…

I have a SaaS startup, my "how to be an entrepreneur stuff" are free ;) The answer is no ; as for today. But I believe that the difference between an entrepreneur and an employee is the number of hours an entrepreneur is willing to work for free. That being said, I also expect to start cashing in and make 5 figures a month by the end of this month. I agree that contacts are key but I also feel you don't have the righ…

>Well, my impression is that what you really want is security and a constant flow of high income. However what I want is to make the impact I decided to make on the world and become rich by doing so. I'd 100 times prefer to have 50$ left after paying my bills by developing my ventures, than 6000$ left by having 50 hours a week corporate job.

I don't know where you're getting a need for security... I'll almost always take what I perceive to be the higher total expected return option, modulo emotional attachments and ethical baggage. My point is just that if you have the skills to get a big corporate programming job, that's probably going to be your highest total expected return option, even if you don't value security.

when I started going into business for myself ten years ago? I could have been you, only, you know, less slick. (And "slick" is interesting, because rhetoric that plays well with one group plays poorly with another. I would have used "plain language" and I wouldn't have quoted an entertainer, but even if the words we used had different connotations, the denotations would be similar) I spent many of those years living as you suggest (having $50 left over after paying my bills... I exaggerate some... but not that much.) Sure, it was pretty exciting, but... it's also exhausting after a few years. I mean, I'm not saying you shouldn't try it for yourself, it's just that you shouldn't fool yourself into the idea that it makes any kind of financial sense at all.

Re: The Refragmentation

#440

Post by harryh »

beagle3 wrote: post #368
harryh wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

beagle3 argued that in a world without welfare, Wal-Mart would have to pay more or their employees would be unable to work due to lack of basic necessities. I was only arguing against that assertion.

I was merely paraphrasing my understanding of sanders' argument. But the argument has merit if the wage is not livable. The two issues the make this an issue (or a nonissue) is what is a minimum livable wage, and whether or not it is the governments role to enforce that or not. (No idea about the first, I think Yes about the second)

Ya, I get that you were paraphrasing. And you did a fine job in my opinion, so my refutation was more aimed at Bernie than you.

With regards to enforcement of a minimum wage I would say that if we, as a society, want to enforce minimum living standards that is a burden that should fall on all of us and not just companies that employ low skilled labor.

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