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Sam Altman's Bubble Talk Bet Is 1 Year Old

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Sam Altman's Bubble Talk Bet Is 1 Year Old

#31

Post by Pxtl »

NumberCruncher wrote: post #22
projectramo wrote: post #4

Here are his three bets reproduced for comments: 1) The top 6 US companies at http://fortune.com/2015/01/22/the-age-of-unicorns/ (Uber, Palantir, Airbnb, Dropbox, Pinterest, and SpaceX) are currently worth just over $100B. I am leaving out Snapchat because I couldn’t get verification of its valuation. Proposition 1: On January 1st, 2020, these companies will be worth at least $200B in aggregate. Seems he is on track…

Basecamp is now a $100 billion dollar company, according to a group of investors who have agreed to purchase 0.000000001% of the company in exchange for $1. Source: https://m.signalvnoise.com/press-release-basecamp-valuation-...

They should have sold it for $10 to make it an even trillion.

Re: Sam Altman's Bubble Talk Bet Is 1 Year Old

#32

Post by ebbv »

sama wrote: post #24

I feel better about this now than I did a year ago. Proposition 1 is up about 50% in the first year, and proposition 2 is up about 65%. The main point remains--we spend far too much time talking about whether or not startups are in a bubble. It's boring and it gets in the way. Sometimes it will be true and sometimes it won't, but the stories claiming a huge bubble for the last 10 years have been generally wrong. It w…

Do you think that perhaps there were crickets because the people with the money/position to be able to take the bet have good reason to share your bullish view because they also stand to benefit from you being right? So they have to not only be bearish but be really confident about being bearish to take your bet?

I believe we are in a bubble but I'm not a millionaire I'm just a regular developer, so I don't have $100k to gamble. Maybe I should have offered to take your bet at $100 a year ago? :)

To be honest, though, even though I believe we are in a bubble I don't feel that confident it will burst by 2020. There's too many factors at play that I can't accurately predict a timeline. I just think we're in a bubble because I look at valuations of companies like Uber and AirBnB and they seem inflated to me.

Re: Sam Altman's Bubble Talk Bet Is 1 Year Old

#34

Post by eganist »

sama wrote: post #24

I feel better about this now than I did a year ago. Proposition 1 is up about 50% in the first year, and proposition 2 is up about 65%. The main point remains--we spend far too much time talking about whether or not startups are in a bubble. It's boring and it gets in the way. Sometimes it will be true and sometimes it won't, but the stories claiming a huge bubble for the last 10 years have been generally wrong. It w…

> The goal of this bet was to deflate the bubble conversation, and that seemed somewhat effective.

Is it the bet which deflated the bubble conversation, or a deflation (or speculation of such) of the bubble itself? I ask because if you take a look at layman-accessible headlines or even some of the conversations which take place here, there's still quite a lot about the "downturn" in the bay. That alone's likely enough to get people to stop talking "bubble" even if the only downturn was in the rate of acceleration of growth, not in actual growth itself.

Still, I appreciate the bet for putting the focus on entrepreneurial efforts as a force of worldwide change rather than as a force of wealth creation.

Re: Sam Altman's Bubble Talk Bet Is 1 Year Old

#35

Post by blowski »

x1798DE wrote: post #30
blowski wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think this underscores how long 5 years is in internet time. You're absolutely right. The 10 biggest tech stories of 2011 http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/26/tech/web/tech-news-2011/in...

I'm not sure I understand, those stories don't seem to bolster your point - a few of them are one-time events (Steve Jobs' death), and most of them are still ongoing concerns - hackers, facebook, etc. I probably agree that 5 years is a long time in tech, but some variation on almost all those stories could easily be published today.

In that vein, World War 2 was merely a variation on the Roman invasion of Gaul. The reason I linked to the article is that things which are commonplace and obvious today - a multitude of cheap Android-powered tablets, social media being used to facilitate political action - were newsworthy just five years ago.

Re: Sam Altman's Bubble Talk Bet Is 1 Year Old

#36

Post by vasilipupkin »

sama wrote: post #24

I feel better about this now than I did a year ago. Proposition 1 is up about 50% in the first year, and proposition 2 is up about 65%. The main point remains--we spend far too much time talking about whether or not startups are in a bubble. It's boring and it gets in the way. Sometimes it will be true and sometimes it won't, but the stories claiming a huge bubble for the last 10 years have been generally wrong. It w…

Hmmm. I think at least some of these companies are worth less now than a year ago. Zenefits, coinbase, palantir, mixpanel, etc. am I wrong? Agree on the bubble issue. It's a boring discussion

Re: Sam Altman's Bubble Talk Bet Is 1 Year Old

#38

Post by vkou »

Pxtl wrote: post #33
hindsightbias wrote: post #26

Protip: Bubbles always last 18 months longer than you think they can.

I figured the Canadian real-estate bubble would pop like 5 years ago. Not so much.

Well... It popped in Fort McMurray.

Edit: And that was way before this year's wildfire.

Re: Sam Altman's Bubble Talk Bet Is 1 Year Old

#39

Post by nostrademons »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #36
sama wrote: post #24

I feel better about this now than I did a year ago. Proposition 1 is up about 50% in the first year, and proposition 2 is up about 65%. The main point remains--we spend far too much time talking about whether or not startups are in a bubble. It's boring and it gets in the way. Sometimes it will be true and sometimes it won't, but the stories claiming a huge bubble for the last 10 years have been generally wrong. It w…

Hmmm. I think at least some of these companies are worth less now than a year ago. Zenefits, coinbase, palantir, mixpanel, etc. am I wrong? Agree on the bubble issue. It's a boring discussion

That's why the bet is structured as a portfolio. In startup investing, it doesn't matter if some of the portfolio loses big (or everything) as long as there's at least one winner that expands many-fold.

Re: Sam Altman's Bubble Talk Bet Is 1 Year Old

#40

Post by tacos »

sama wrote: post #24

I feel better about this now than I did a year ago. Proposition 1 is up about 50% in the first year, and proposition 2 is up about 65%. The main point remains--we spend far too much time talking about whether or not startups are in a bubble. It's boring and it gets in the way. Sometimes it will be true and sometimes it won't, but the stories claiming a huge bubble for the last 10 years have been generally wrong. It w…

I question your valuations... they're neither public market numbers nor completed acquisitions. You're using the bubble to validate your assumptions that you're not in a bubble.
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