Fly into the sun and die.
YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”
161–170 of 313 posts
Re: YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”
#162I hope by “flying” they mean “levitating”. I can barely fly my toy drone without getting pinged by Government about how I am violating airspace rules. Can’t imagine there will be flying bikes in next 50 years atleast. I am in EU.
Re: YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure I'd call that a moonshot. Difficult and maybe crazy, but modern agriculture clearly already exists and works, unlike driverless cars for example.
I mean... we're trying to end human hunger for a few hundred million people. Thank you for believing in us? No one has ever told me that it sounds more plausible than driverless cars. I'm torn between puffing up my chest and taking the compliment.
It is true: right at this very moment, billions of people have enough food do eat. It is a worthy task to try to extend that to the hundreds of millions who are not there yet, but it's hardly something that has never been done before, unlike driverless cars.
That doesn't mean it will be any easier (or harder), but it does mean that it is less of a "moonshot".
Re: YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”
#164Lots of posts in here with the usual complaints about how this is an immoral waste of money on a toy for rich people, but does the amount of money that went into this project even come close in order of magnitude to the cash consumed by the Las Vegas casino business, or golf courses, or exclusive Trump brand resorts? Unlike those examples, this project at least funds a lot of research and engineering that surely will have some other applications down the line, and moreover is clearly inspirational (and therefore may result in a larger number of engineers and scientists in future generations, some of whom surely will work on artificial kidneys and whatever other ethically valuable projects you'd think of as well).
I really wish our civilisation would stop holding novel undertakings to uniquely rigorous (ethical, safety...) standards than it never seems to apply to its established habits.
Re: YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”
#165Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't speak for the person you're responding to, but as someone who also started (and failed) a moonshot company I can chime in. To grossly oversimplify, failure (especially when you put everything into something) can make people jaded. The breaking point for everyone is different, but eventually you just don't want to try the pie-in-the-sky idea because you remember how painful the failure is, how many years of yo…
But I've been wondering, why not make the shitload of money first, and once you've got many years saved, then go off and do a moonshot? The usual explanation is something about lifestyle and mortgages and children and so on, but whether you earn the money in your 20s and do a moonshot in your 30s, or do the moonshot in your 20s and earn money in your 30s, don't you wind up at the same place either way?
> why not make the shitload of money first
Because it is very very hard to get to "fuck you"-money and passive income often isn't quite as passive as it seems.
Re: YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”
#166I am a motorcycle nut and aviation nut since birth.
I’ve also jumped out of a dozen aircraft types via static line and ram air free fall chutes.
And I enjoy paragliding.
There’s nothing more I would like to see than a new form of personal flight.
However, I don’t see the viability of this thing at all.
Likely due to my having been in close proximity to the Martin Jetpack slow motion disaster over the last decade.
Reliability, repeatability, infallibility, safety, Certification, and classification.
All tall barriers to entry for recreational/commercial/civil aviation.
What would excite me would be an autonomous vertical lifting body that can lift a 200kg box over 200km, using 5-6 high reliability motors that can survive the failure of 1 or 2 motors as a result of mechanical failure or enemy fire.
For use in both commercial and military applications.
A reliable, agile, boring container carrier.
An oversized coffin shaped container that can fit 80%+ of high value commercial and military and commercial items, including personnel/casualty CASEVAC.
Why are we not building an autonomous platform around the carriage of a specifically calculated cube container?
Like a mini aerial 20ft or 40ft shipping container.
Re: YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”
#167Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can't speak for the person you're responding to, but as someone who also started (and failed) a moonshot company I can chime in. To grossly oversimplify, failure (especially when you put everything into something) can make people jaded. The breaking point for everyone is different, but eventually you just don't want to try the pie-in-the-sky idea because you remember how painful the failure is, how many years of yo…
But I've been wondering, why not make the shitload of money first, and once you've got many years saved, then go off and do a moonshot? The usual explanation is something about lifestyle and mortgages and children and so on, but whether you earn the money in your 20s and do a moonshot in your 30s, or do the moonshot in your 20s and earn money in your 30s, don't you wind up at the same place either way?
I think the darker take on it is that as you get older you realize that things are harder and you're not as dumb. Mortgages and children are a polite way of saying "I know how stupidly hard that is, I like spending time with my wife and kids and family and I'm going to actively choose a quality life over an impactful life."
I tell people to only start a startup, and definitely only start a moonshot startup if you can't help but let your ambition destroy your happiness. Things at Apollo are going really well, and it has been ~5x more stressful than when I was working at a really fast paced and successful US company. It's probably ~15x more stressful than when I was working at a laid back US tech company. You do it because you have to see what you're building in the world.
Re: YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”
#168One of the excellent things about YC is how they are completely unphased by moonshots. I don't know of any other organization that is nearly as supportive of ideas that would literally be called crazy other places. 3.5 years ago my cofounder were working on what was actually becoming an okay telecom referral business at the YC Fellowship, but my cofounder and I weren't happy. Pretty much every partner there enthusias…
They're VCs. They have to bet on moonshots, because they bet on a lot of companies, most of which fail. If they don't bet on crazy ideas, it means the few that succeed, will only succeed like a "regular" company would succeed - with some nice just above positive cashflow, growing in the next 20 years to somewhat sustainable business - nice and slow. This will not fuel financing other 100s of companies that have failed.
What they need in every company they fund is at least a potential of astronomical exponential fast growth, if it succeeds. That's why many of these can be called "moonshots".
If the upside in a company is only to be "mildly successful" - they are not for VCs. The upside has to be explosive (even if there is a low chance of it).
Re: YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”
#169I hate this for so many reasons. One of those 'future' products like clear glass screen and bendable phones that are just, well, stupid. Am I the only person that sees that?
You are not. It seems like a horrible idea. But then again, I didn't understand the point of something like Twitter, either, so I am grateful that people are exploring dumb ideas -- that they appear to be intentionally doing the wrong thing -- because going downhill is the only way you get out of a local optimum. Most of these will fail, that's fine.
Re: YC's latest moonshot bet is a startup building a $380K “flying motorcycle”
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean... we're trying to end human hunger for a few hundred million people. Thank you for believing in us? No one has ever told me that it sounds more plausible than driverless cars. I'm torn between puffing up my chest and taking the compliment.
It is true: right at this very moment, billions of people have enough food do eat. It is a worthy task to try to extend that to the hundreds of millions who are not there yet, but it's hardly something that has never been done before, unlike driverless cars. That doesn't mean it will be any easier (or harder), but it does mean that it is less of a "moonshot".
Yah, it might also be different connotations on moonshot. If you believe a moonshot has to be something new + unlikely/hard then it's definitely not a moonshot. If you think a moonshot is something that's just incredibly unlikely but potentially super valuable, it definitely is.
Empirically, at least two investors who had put money into successful early-stage driverless cars and one who put money early into Planet Labs thought what we were doing was going to be harder. For some VCs, Africa might as well be the moon.