So Close • Hacker News Board

Re: So Close

#161

Post by mikeash » Tue, Jan 02, 2018, 2:48 AM UTC

greglindahl wrote: post #137

ikeboy wrote: post #21

So they had people willing to pay for the product, but not enough runway to launch? Why not get people to pay in full ala Tesla and use that money to launch?

This is not what Tesla has ever done. Only a small fraction of people pay a large deposit for super-premium cars that come out first, and the rest pay a limited deposit. On the other hand, just about every Kickstarter ever has a ton of people who've paid in full. Yet these Kickstarters frequently fail, because it takes a lot more money than entrepreneurs expect to ship a quality product.

Tesla took in $250 million of full-price preorders for their next-gen Roadster, which is years away from production. The comment you replied to didn’t imply that Tesla does this with every car.

Re: So Close

#162

Post by nedwin » Tue, Jan 02, 2018, 2:51 AM UTC

brucephillips wrote: post #129

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's likely that several of these employees are legitimately broke (for reasons beyond their control, not because they're bad at adulting), but they conceal it. Signs of weakness harm your negotiating position.

Honest question: What normal circumstances would lead to anyone making six figures being broke that doesn't involve bad adulting?

Paying off student loans, medical bills, emergency car repairs... basically anything that might deplete an emergency fund or where you might have dipped into this on the assumption your job wasn’t about to be made redundant.

Re: So Close

#163

Post by dwaltrip » Tue, Jan 02, 2018, 2:51 AM UTC

bambax wrote: post #128

anonfunction wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s an interesting definition of love. May I ask if you have kids? For me, love is multi-faceted and can’t be defined as a single attribute like trust. People love food that literally kills them. You don’t always get to choose whom or what you love.

> May I ask if you have kids? Yes you may. I have 3 (8-9-12). I don't "trust" them to not eat candy that I said they shouldn't eat, but I do trust them not to kill me in my sleep -- which is what trust is about (IMHO). In fact I think I trust them more than I love them, and I love them a lot. But sometimes I'm upset with them. Being upset or angry doesn't affect trust. Trust is a kind of binary quality that is either…

Sometimes those we love do things that hurt us. While we may still love them, our trust can be broken (to varying degrees).

Re: So Close

#164

Post by exergy » Tue, Jan 02, 2018, 2:52 AM UTC

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #148

Stuff like this--naive "CEO" making rookie decisions--happens all the time so I'm not surprised. However, I really don't understand what made him think it's OK to celebrate the failure going out, with such an idiotic blog post, pretending that everything is OK. That's the thing that makes people angry about stuff like this. If you failed, just acknowledge it and move on. Better yet, don't even proudly write a medium…

Haha, I predict 2018 will be the year of the "I failed at my startup and didn't write a Medium piece" Medium piece. Similar to the "I quit Facebook/cut the cord but it's no biggie" Medium post.

Re: So Close

#165

Post by dang » Tue, Jan 02, 2018, 2:53 AM UTC

stevemk14ebr wrote: post #20

This title needs fixed. I had no idea what I was clicking on

On HN not every title needs to explain itself immediately. It's good for users to have to work a little.

With this type of post-mortem post in particular, there's a tradition of elegaic titles, and it seems fair to give poetic license to the author under such circumstances.

Re: So Close

#166

Post by dwaltrip » Tue, Jan 02, 2018, 2:54 AM UTC

cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #148

Stuff like this--naive "CEO" making rookie decisions--happens all the time so I'm not surprised. However, I really don't understand what made him think it's OK to celebrate the failure going out, with such an idiotic blog post, pretending that everything is OK. That's the thing that makes people angry about stuff like this. If you failed, just acknowledge it and move on. Better yet, don't even proudly write a medium…

I found the article/story to be interesting, but I do agree it could have used more self-reflection on mistakes that were made or different decisions that could have been taken.

Re: So Close

#167

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jan 02, 2018, 2:55 AM UTC

brucephillips wrote: post #129

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's likely that several of these employees are legitimately broke (for reasons beyond their control, not because they're bad at adulting), but they conceal it. Signs of weakness harm your negotiating position.

Honest question: What normal circumstances would lead to anyone making six figures being broke that doesn't involve bad adulting?

[deleted]

Re: So Close

#168

Post by yawaramin » Tue, Jan 02, 2018, 2:58 AM UTC

austenallred wrote: post #141

exergy wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Irreverently, fuck this attitude instead. Silicon valley is chock full of know-nothing delusionals who love the smell of their own farts a little too much. People who're convinced that their idiotic pilgrimage towards delivering a "magical" "experience", while completely divested from common sense and lacking any semblance of an answer to "but why?", will nevertheless change the world and "delight" users. Fuck all of…

> Silicon valley is chock full of know-nothing delusionals who love the smell of their own farts a little too much. And Hacker News is full of people who lob bombs at everyone who tries and fails because it makes them feel superior for never having tried, all the while vastly underestimating the difficulty of building something meaningful. Most efforts at building something great fail, so it’s easy to shit on everyth…

The thing is, I bet you they would find sympathy here if they launched, competed, and couldn't find a toehold. That would have been an honourable exit. But the way they went out here, after burning through $45m in investment funds and mismanaging a potential sale, then trying to imply blame on the would-be buyer--this doesn't look good at all.

Edit: example of HN crowd sympathetic to a postmortem https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13421608

Re: So Close

#169

Post by siidooloo » Tue, Jan 02, 2018, 2:58 AM UTC

bambax wrote: post #65

twblalock wrote: post #10

If I understand the sequence of events properly, the company entered acquisition negotiations and agreed not to solicit other bids during that time. When the acquisition fell apart, the company was out of money and had to stop operations. If that's correct, it seems to me like it's something they should have known in advance -- if they knew they would be out of money by the end of the year, why would they enter acqui…

Yes. Also, the video about the product https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsT5xvoaHBo was kind of disturbing, talking about "those we love". To the people you love, you don't send a code or some app or procedure. You greet them at the door. If you need to send people a code to enter your property, you're not loving them, you're running a business. Which is fine -- just don't pretend it has anything to do with "love". Or…

Yeah, based on the video I think they got the market for this wrong. I can easily imagine businesses wanting something like this. I don't know anyone who would be running to get it at home.

Re: So Close

#170

Post by dang » Tue, Jan 02, 2018, 2:58 AM UTC

exergy wrote: post #154

austenallred wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Silicon valley is chock full of know-nothing delusionals who love the smell of their own farts a little too much. And Hacker News is full of people who lob bombs at everyone who tries and fails because it makes them feel superior for never having tried, all the while vastly underestimating the difficulty of building something meaningful. Most efforts at building something great fail, so it’s easy to shit on everyth…

[Removed pointless ranting]

I'm glad you work at CERN as an engineer. I work at Hacker News as a moderator. Really, please don't "do this". You're doing more damage to this site, which is trying against steep odds to be a place for thoughtful conversation, than even 100% rightness of your points could justify.

I assume you benefit from Hacker News, since you're a user here and a welcome one. But if you're benefitting from it, please take care of it, the same way you wouldn't litter in a city park or set fire to one.

If you read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html you'll get an idea of the intended spirit of the site. If you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do; assume good faith, and please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.