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Hard Startups

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Hard Startups

#71

Post by ignoramous »

jerf wrote: post #44
outworlder wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The system would probably store all packets in a block chain and routing would be based on a machine learning system.

"Our router can route an astonishing 2,000 packets per second! No other router can offer you this sort of performance! Blockchain. Go ahead. Ask our competitors if they can match this. You'll find their jaw drops and that they'll tell you that this level of performance shouldn't even be possible on commodity hardware! Our experts hand-tuned the multi-billion parameter neural nets our product uses. The competition wou…

That made me chuckle. I cringe at exaggerated, buzz-wordy, vague sales-copy as much as the other person, but isn't it shown to work (by Apple et al)? I'd be interested if you or anyone else have examples of to-the-point landing pages / sales-copy with zero exaggeration and gimmicks.

I liked the WhatsApp's back in the day [0], but they had a lot going for them and didn't need any extraordinary claims. MissiveApp [1] is another one that feels comfortable, to me.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20090914114259/http://www.whatsa...

[1] https://missiveapp.com

Re: Hard Startups

#72

Post by qchris »

ssorallen wrote: post #53
sp527 wrote: post #9

It’s odd (read: motivated by self-interest) that he didn’t make any attempt to establish the failure rate of these startups and the distribution of outcomes for employees. Further, he didn’t even argue for a referendum on equity comp. He’s blatantly peddling the same broken model of “sell them your fugazzi so they can’t tell their talent is being plundered for (founder/investor) economic gain”. It’s downright insulti…

> Don’t fall for their “mission” nonsense. It’s a monstrous lie designed to keep funneling tremendous amounts of money to the people at the top. 100%. I've recently run into this with companies peddling that they're "mission-driven", as if that's somehow a replacement for compensating their employees appropriately. If it's a for-profit company then this "mission-driven" term is absolutely nonsense because the cap tab…

I'm a little curious to see if this distinction might provide a competitive advantage to public benefit corporations. Objectively, I believe there's some literature to back up that a person's belief and interest in the work they're doing plays a role in their likelihood to work at an organization [1] (tangentially, I imagine that this has played a role in the success of Elon Musk's companies).

If we axiomatically say that talent plays a significant role in a company's success, and that top talent cares about the mission of the company that they work for, it follows that a company that puts it money where its mouth is (so to speak) wrt to a corporate governance structure that seems to place that mission at least in the neighborhood of parity with profit motive, they might be able to leverage that as a competitive advantage. Of course, whether that initial assumption is correct is up for debate, as is whether a PBC structure affords enough to move the needle on perceived mission-alignment.

[1] https://hbr.org/2018/11/9-out-of-10-people-are-willing-to-ea...

Re: Hard Startups

#73

Post by iratewizard »

bradlys wrote: post #61
jkubicek wrote: post #49

I feel like the money quote was buried in the postscript. > Another solution to this problem is to think about startups that can become quite successful with less than ten people. As compensation packages from the giant tech companies continue to increase, I suspect this will become a trend. As cash comp at big public companies grow and the future value of startup options plummet, we need to start thinking about diff…

Is 2.5mm really viable for 10 people within SF Bay Area? That would mean compensation would be around $250k per person (not including payroll taxes, office rent, and whatever else cuts into that). That's distant from the compensation packages being given out by Big N.

Why does it need to be in the Bay Area? Or any expensive city for that matter? An EBITDA of $2.5mm in the Rust belt for instance is more than successful and would retain and satisfy top talent in the area.

Does the biggest compensation package even attract the best talent? Or does it just attract the obsessively competitive to burn out in style?

Re: Hard Startups

#74

Post by staticautomatic »

ablekh wrote: post #65
staticautomatic wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone with domain experience thinks you can't do what you're trying to do or are doing it the wrong way: 1. They're correct and you should not get a check. 2. They're incorrect, and you wouldn't want them to be the person writing the check. 3. They have good reasons for their concern which you had not yet considered. All of these sound like good outcomes to me.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. What you're saying definitely makes sense. However, the question is whether one should prefer or avoid such, considering my assumptions on relevant pros and cons (in other words, it's a question about fundraising process optimization ).

Ok, but optimizing for what?

Re: Hard Startups

#75

Post by cbhl »

marcosdumay wrote: post #37
beat wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. Which is why government research is probably a better model for these world-changing basic technologies than Silicon Valley. Ugh, can you imagine how bad TCP/IP would have sucked if it had been developed by venture capital funding?

> Ugh, can you imagine how bad TCP/IP would have sucked if it had been developed by venture capital funding? It was. Several times. It was developed by a lot of large companies too. Nobody remember those, for obvious reasons, but people used to use them.

Novell had NetWare and IPX. Apple had AppleTalk. There was also Token ring...

Re: Hard Startups

#76

Post by csa »

bradlys wrote: post #61
jkubicek wrote: post #49

I feel like the money quote was buried in the postscript. > Another solution to this problem is to think about startups that can become quite successful with less than ten people. As compensation packages from the giant tech companies continue to increase, I suspect this will become a trend. As cash comp at big public companies grow and the future value of startup options plummet, we need to start thinking about diff…

Is 2.5mm really viable for 10 people within SF Bay Area? That would mean compensation would be around $250k per person (not including payroll taxes, office rent, and whatever else cuts into that). That's distant from the compensation packages being given out by Big N.

I appreciate your comment, but I don’t really know where to start with it since it’s so far off the mark.

1. A start up would start with fewer people and less money. It would most likely be started by people who can live cheaply and/or people who have money from other sources like work or family. Founders typically don’t make anything early, but once the revenue starts rolling in, they can pay themselves and others.

2. Assuming you are referring to a business making 2.5mm, that’s plenty for a smaller team (e.g., 5). Not everyone will be a high-paid tech professional, and the founders will probably be the highest paid folks in sales and tech (at least in this structure). If you’ve got 2-3 founders growing a non-VC tech business making 2.5mm a year, and they can’t make it work, they’ve got big structural issues that they need to address.

3. Outside of the Bay Area or NYC, 10 people on 2.5 mm would be very doable.

Re: Hard Startups

#77

Post by jimkri »

jrkelly wrote: post #24

"If you want to start a company working on a better way to build homes, gene editing, artificial general intelligence, a new education system, or carbon sequestration, you may actually be able to get it funded, even if you don’t have a degree or much experience." I encourage anyone to give hard startups a shot, but there are tons of PhDs/Postdocs out there who would make amazing founders -- they should make the leap!…

I'm currently in the research phase for an idea using algae/other plants that sequester CO2 rapidly and continue to have questions, which lead to more questions. Thankfully there is a ton of research that has been done, which makes diving into the topic easy. But having someone to work with that has a PhD/postdoc in this area could help build the idea faster.

How can I meet someone with a PhD/postdoc in a specific field? Should I just browse ASU for PhD students or look at specific universities and areas.

Re: Hard Startups

#78

Post by ablekh »

staticautomatic wrote: post #74
ablekh wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. What you're saying definitely makes sense. However, the question is whether one should prefer or avoid such, considering my assumptions on relevant pros and cons (in other words, it's a question about fundraising process optimization ).

Ok, but optimizing for what?

For fundraising time and effort.

Re: Hard Startups

#79

Post by DrNuke »

Sometimes it is serendipity that makes the biggest breakthrough, though... see for example the Ebola drug now, this same evening, seeming effective against Coronavirus... you as a VC can neither plan for nor invest in any given lab or boutique consultancy worldwide... and the bigger and bigger hammer thrown at hard nuts is just another way, a very expensive one and possibly unsustainable by VC?

Re: Hard Startups

#80

Post by [deleted] »

bradlys wrote: post #61
jkubicek wrote: post #49

I feel like the money quote was buried in the postscript. > Another solution to this problem is to think about startups that can become quite successful with less than ten people. As compensation packages from the giant tech companies continue to increase, I suspect this will become a trend. As cash comp at big public companies grow and the future value of startup options plummet, we need to start thinking about diff…

Is 2.5mm really viable for 10 people within SF Bay Area? That would mean compensation would be around $250k per person (not including payroll taxes, office rent, and whatever else cuts into that). That's distant from the compensation packages being given out by Big N.

[deleted]
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