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VCs Are Just Tired

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Re: VCs Are Just Tired

#71

Post by yibg »

tempsy wrote: post #65
yibg wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see these types of comments here quit a bit, and I'm guessing they're mostly from folks with no kids or ever having kids. Certainly there is an argument to be made for working less and living with less, but for most people $1M invested doesn't check out. If you're relying solely on returns from that investment, then conservatively you can only safely withdraw 3-4%, which works out to 30-40k a year. That's close to…

There are REITs that generate 12% dividends you can easily buy, which would be $120K before tax. 3-4% is extremely conservative and you could certainly withdraw more. It’s also less about “never making another dime working” and more that you don’t need a traditional 9-5. You can and should figure out other sources of income.

There are investments that return 10+%, but that doesn't mean that's how much you should take out every year. The 3-4% (usually 4% for retirement savings) is to buffer for years where you get negative returns. I've never seen anyone recommend withdrawing 12% a year with plans to have the nestegg last a long time.

Re: VCs Are Just Tired

#72

Post by gwright »

randomdata wrote: post #38
jyounker wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could pay works more so that, in their role as consumers, they can buy more.

Once one's basic needs are met, which has a upper limit on how much needs to be purchased, what else is there to buy? In the olden days people needed to buy things to keep themselves entertained, but in this day of age we just hop onto the internet for free (effectively).

How is the Internet (effectively) free?

    * desktops, laptops, phones, tablets, etc aren't free
    * wireless data plans aren't free
    * wired Internet connections aren't free
    * streaming services aren't free

Re: VCs Are Just Tired

#73

Post by lazzlazzlazz »

auston wrote: post #50

Can’t help but feel like they could literally just take a trip outside SV and get: 1. Easier access to deal flow 2. Lower valuations 3. Less competition If any VCs are interested, HMU I can show you strong deals your peers saw way before you because they looked @ Miami + deals your peers haven’t seen because I live here & I am plugged in.

I'm a fan of Miami, and I don't mean this as a dig: could you point at some venture-sized exits from Miami, especially ones that SV VCs seem to have missed/been late to?

Re: VCs Are Just Tired

#74

Post by tempsy »

yibg wrote: post #71
tempsy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are REITs that generate 12% dividends you can easily buy, which would be $120K before tax. 3-4% is extremely conservative and you could certainly withdraw more. It’s also less about “never making another dime working” and more that you don’t need a traditional 9-5. You can and should figure out other sources of income.

There are investments that return 10+%, but that doesn't mean that's how much you should take out every year. The 3-4% (usually 4% for retirement savings) is to buffer for years where you get negative returns. I've never seen anyone recommend withdrawing 12% a year with plans to have the nestegg last a long time.

I was suggesting 6% not 12%. You can live off $60K as a single person even in higher cost cities pretty easily. Taxes aren’t actually that high even in CA at that level.

Re: VCs Are Just Tired

#75

Post by throwGuardian »

Aren't these the same VCs espousing China style 9:9:6 work hours [1], promoting myths of 10x-ers who only sleep once a week, and demand from their portfolio every last breath of effort, or esle ...

Please, apply some of that 9:9:6 to your VC workflow, don't sleep and definitely try to be a 10-X investor. And definitely turn up the paranoia on FOMO - not because it yields dividends, but because every VC peaches it, so practice what you ...

Those Billions won't earn themselves

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system

Re: VCs Are Just Tired

#76

Post by kev009 »

_ywdj wrote: post #55
kev009 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like a pharmaceutical company that dumped opioids on the public through legislature, perverting the medical community, advertising and reputation saying "well there are many factors and your brain has countless millennia of evolution to seek out these compounds". Sorry, I just don't buy it. People can be wrong, and in fact it is necessary for people to be able to be wrong and state their case and sometimes em…

> This is like a pharmaceutical company ... If there was anybody who would be motivated to scapegoat a single actor or cause for dysfunction in the medical industry it's me. I've endured debilitating health challenges, including severe pain, for almost half my life. I've had plenty of time and motivation to research and contemplate everything that's wrong with the medical system, including corrupt dealings between ph…

Sorry dude I'm not really tracking with you at all. The OP posited some plain issues that can be dissected and dismissed but was muted by a mod that works for an organization that benefits from just burying said issues. I lean conservative and can't really see how anyone in tech says with a straight face the "gig economy" is good for anybody except the 10^5 or so technical staff and their management and financiers. A modest understanding of history (i.e. what technology meant in the 60s and 70s) just leaves me bewildered with what constitutes tech now, and the flow of money from monetary policy down to banks and VCs is they main cause of overall stalling out of fundamental, worthwhile, and simply interesting progress. The cashout culture of things like WeWork is a totally different dimension of the bizarre and unsavory. VCs should be tired enabling and propping this farce up.

A desire for intellectualism comes from allowing airtime for ideas that you disagree with, that might even confront yourself, and maybe even elucidating and moving the tonal argument you disagree with to the very roots of the things that need to be discussed and providing ample discourse for the thoughts to be explored. Whether you are doing this or not I can't really tell right now, but you are not the target of my comments, the mod mute is. I'm happy to just go away at this point, this site and surrounding culture has changed for the worse in the 12 years I've seen.

Re: VCs Are Just Tired

#77

Post by TuringNYC »

seem_2211 wrote: post #67
munificent wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is captured by businesses rather than the employees. "Businesses" don't really do much of anything. What you really mean is the billionaire executives at the top of them.

Well yes, but the majority of it is captured by the middle class, in the form of public pensions, 401k's, the stock market etc.

How much of the market is actually owned by the middle class? I would say not much in the US.

See page 44 of the paper below.

You can look at Income, Wealth (net worth) or financial resources. Net Worth is probably the best estimate. You'll notice the top 1% has ~40% of the wealth. The next 4% have ~30% of the wealth.

So it would be very inaccurate to suggest that the "majority" of wealth and upside is accrued to the middle class, at least in the US.

"Household Wealth Trends in the United States, 1962 to 2016: Has Middle Class Wealth Recovered?" Edward N. Wolff

NBER Working Paper No. 24085 Issued in November 2017 https://www.nber.org/papers/w24085

Re: VCs Are Just Tired

#78

Post by dang »

kev009 wrote: post #20
dang wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't post in the flamewar style to Hacker News—not even about VCs. We're looking for curious conversation here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Assume for a moment the guy is right by whatever circumstances. There are three supporting pieces of evidence and perhaps the last sentence is "charged" but I don't see how it is offensive even if wholly incorrect. How would he present the very ideas as "curious conversation"?

It's simpler than this. A post that begins "I have a really hard time empathizing here" and ends with a snarky punchline is playing the flamewar game. The comment is obviously denunciatory rhetoric. There are lots of other places for that on the internet; on this site we're trying to avoid it.

We can't have both the flamewar game and the curious conversation game. That's not a moral observation, it's an empirical one: those roads lead to very different places. Since HN exists for one and not the other, it's a moderation issue.

Re: VCs Are Just Tired

#79

Post by TuringNYC »

tempsy wrote: post #45
azinman2 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds edge case-y (and only decreasing as wealth inequality increase)... but as you said, there are other reasons that keep them going. It’s not about “survival” in the most basic sense. That doesn’t make it any less real to those people.

$1M savings should last a life time if aggressively invested. If you have no dependents then 5-10 in a managerial class role should get you there

I'm assuming you're speaking about the US.

If your health insurance coverage denies any procedure you consider necessary (which they do not), you're looking at 6 figure bills. These balloon with age. I'd agree on the $1M figure, but only without the monkey wrench of US healthcare.

Re: VCs Are Just Tired

#80

Post by TuringNYC »

tempsy wrote: post #68
azinman2 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t understand your point. 39% of the country would have to borrow to cover a $400 surprise medical expense. Not many have $1MM in savings to “aggressively invest” (what does that even mean? Risky investments? Which means sometimes the luck will run out?). I also don’t know many ordinary managers with $5-10MM in savings. That’s quite some income, and those people must not be married with kids. Regardless, none of…

I mean you’re proving my point exactly. People who have the savings to not work convince themselves that their identity is their job and do it to “keep up.” My point is that is all in your head, and if you’re going around complaining about how busy you are you then you’re doing it voluntarily and not because you will literally be homeless if you stop. $1M in a high quality REIT can generate 12% dividends, which is $1…

>> $1M in a high quality REIT can generate 12% dividends, which is $120K.

Are these 12% dividends normal or sustainable? Have they continued over the years? Could you name a couple of sample names/tickers?

>> A single person could easily live off half that.

True -- perhaps not half but you are forgetting taxes!

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