121–130 of 131 posts
The gold rush is over because everyone who wants a PC has a PC. -2005ish
The hardware hasn't really gotten significantly better in the last 10 years to get people on the upgrade treadmill again. Phones are on that curve now, but eventually they are going to top out too, and your iPhone 10 won't be that significant an upgrade from your iPhone 9.
There is truth here, but remember that the age of the intelligent networked machine is just beginning. Look at the YC classes. They are very different from 2005. You can't get rich making a site like reddit today. YC is going international, with X for Y country businesses. I was talking to a friend with a startup in Indonesia. In Asia its like 1998. I think we are just at the end of the easy social/mobile revolution…
"the age of the intelligent networked machine is just beginning" This sounds like pure denial. You don't want to face a painful truth, so you create a rationalization. But your sentence could be applied to dozens of other maturing industries, and your sentence would be wrong in every case: In the 1880s: "There are thousands of oil reserves that no one has discovered yet, therefore the field remains wide open to innov…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The train, the automobile, and the microprocessor were all harbingers of exponentially increasing wealth and opportunity. Each technology lowered the cost of starting and running businesses, as well as giant ancillary businesses and markets. The microprocessor preceded the gold rush we're eulogizing here. They all spawned brand new ecosystems that created entirely new opportunities for entrepreneurs to create wealth.…
It's possible that you did not understand the original article. Or perhaps you did not read it. When you write: "Each technology lowered the cost of starting and running businesses" No, not in those industries. When an industry consolidates, the cost of the starting a new business in that industry skyrockets. Eventually it becomes impossible to start a new company in that industry. That clearly happened for trains an…
I can see the arguments for that but on the other hand the internet unicorns are popping up like never before. Maybe they are overhyped but Slack etc are doing ok. I'm not sure things are dramatically different in 2016 compared to 2013 when they launched for example.
There is truth here, but remember that the age of the intelligent networked machine is just beginning. Look at the YC classes. They are very different from 2005. You can't get rich making a site like reddit today. YC is going international, with X for Y country businesses. I was talking to a friend with a startup in Indonesia. In Asia its like 1998. I think we are just at the end of the easy social/mobile revolution…
Why not? Reddit is old...
There is truth here, but remember that the age of the intelligent networked machine is just beginning. Look at the YC classes. They are very different from 2005. You can't get rich making a site like reddit today. YC is going international, with X for Y country businesses. I was talking to a friend with a startup in Indonesia. In Asia its like 1998. I think we are just at the end of the easy social/mobile revolution…
> I was talking to a friend with a startup in Indonesia. In Asia its like 1998. Seems very ironic, if you remember that time in Asia. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1997_Asian_financial_crisis )
I disagree. I am reminded of the comparison of the prisoner and the warden, where the warden [behemoth] has his whole life to think about whereas the prisoner [startup] is only thinking of escape [way to get a leg up on the behemoth]. The difference is that many people see the behemoth with no obvious weaknesses and give up; but if they had the same weaknesses they exploited, that would be too easy wouldn't it?
TechCrunch, the over confident tabloid reporters of hype who only a few weeks ago were all breathless about 'unicorns', are now swinging the pendulum to the other extreme. I'm in the bay area and there is a new realism for sure, but the idea that low buck entrepreneurialism is 'over' is absurd. Most of the current wave of tech's origins are in the Web 2.0 'read/write' web that came after the dot com pump and dump fun…
I think you're right. Most of what we read in media is the latest hype. Unicorns were hype and covered to no end. This weeks hype is the end times of tech. There's no middle ground in most of the news I read. Imo, the markets are tightening up forcing companies at all stages to cut their budgets and/or generate revenue. Tighter markets and harder conditions does not equate to the stagnation of tech. They are not the…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am not sure of what to infer from these. In the end, the entire macroeconomic background is different.
Even in 2008, there was a lot of denial about the impact of the downturn on Silicon Valley. "And they assert that they are not feeling anything like the pain that followed the collapse of the dot-com bubble, which led to big job losses, an exodus of talent, a plunging commercial real estate market and a significant drop in investment in start-up companies."
No the social gold rush is gone. Everybody who wishes to get online is online already with something and you have displace that. And "gold rush" is a good term--"land grab" might be better. The fact that the "disruptive" companies are all now skirting or outright flouting the law shows that the easy land is taken. If it's highly profitable, it's either illegal or difficult. Easy and profitable means that, even if you…
> And, do remember, the people who made all the money in the gold rush weren't the miners, it was the people who sold shovels and alcohol. Ssssh, don't give away the secret. ;) Actually, startups designed to sell to other startups will fail too when the whole thing collapses like a stack of cards... Enter Mandrill, which recently found its conversion funnel so ineffective that they suddenly shut the entire system dow…
I was curious so I googled. Wikipedia: There were 300,000 gold-seekers and "On average, half the gold-seekers made a modest profit, after taking all expenses into account."
So probably better odds than the people doing startups. One person who made a lot of money was Levi Strauss who stated selling denim to the miners.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, could you please clarify? So is it in Google or in the bank that people speak up to management? And what is the Memegen (and its flaws) you refer to? I google it and find a bunch of meme generators.
I believe he's saying that Google is more open, and people are willing to speak up (including to management). That has been my experience so far as well. I was also in banking and financial services before, and I found people tip toe around management a lot more. And MemeGen is an internal thing, and I won't say anything beyond that. (I understand what the poster is saying, but I don't think it's necessary to underst…
Especially around bonus time.
Memegen is internal, but has been leaked and written about. See https://www.google.com/search?q=Google+memegen