Hard Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: Hard Startups

#301

Post by KKKKkkkk1 » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 4:02 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #201

Animats wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That came up recently in connection with a VR-related startup. They've been working for years, and they just canned the project and laid off about 60 people. It's all in-house code. So now the people laid off have to find new jobs. They don't have any of the buzzwords resume scanners want. Heroku? No. React? No. Unreal Engine? No. Unity? No. SpatialOS? No. WebAsm? No. Kubernetes? No. Docker? No. AWS? No. Javascript?…

> Maybe they can get a job fixing legacy C++ applications. There's big money in that - those legacy applications are vital to the functioning of big corporations. Specialising in large in-house C++ applications obviously doesn't help develop a career in trendy webdev (and nor should it), but it absolutely gives you some good options.

Money ain't everything. Folks who are after comfortable pay and a W/L balance don't work for a VR startup.

Re: Hard Startups

#302

Post by TimPC » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 4:14 PM UTC

modo_mario wrote: post #278

m0zg wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the climate change situation was really as dire as we're being told, we'd have nuclear coming out of our ears by now, and nothing whatsoever would be able to stop it. It doesn't have to be ultra-expensive if it's not bespoke every time you build it. The investment into fusion would also be 10x what it is today, and we'd already have a viable version of it, after a Manhattan-project style, do-or-die effort. What's…

A lot of this tbh is probably because of infighting between renewables and nuclear. Fusion seems like a bit of a black box to throw money into which isn't appreciated. Throw too little and you don't get there. Throw enough and you don't know when you'll get there. Fission solves a lot of problems but nobody likes it in their back yeard and some countries have gotten a scare of it (japan, germany,etc) It also takes a…

Most renewables aren't viable for base load power. Nuclear is viable only for base load power. Realistically they are competing for different parts of the power utilization and shouldn't be infighting at all. You want nuclear for the amount of power that's always on the grid. You want renewables to be able to handle spiking. The hard part of renewables now is the unpredictable output from varying winds and levels of sunlight. The cost problem is solved. If someone could come up with a way to make renewables very consistent in power output they'd blow nuclear out of the water. One of the reasons hydroelectric is so effective is the amount of water going over a suitable waterfall has a viable minimum (it might sometimes increase after rains but even in dry periods it has a predictable power level).

Re: Hard Startups

#303

Post by smacktoward » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 4:36 PM UTC

pjdemers wrote: post #7

The problem with startups building hard tech is it takes a long time to fail. Failures that take decades doesn't work in the startup model. Image working on a fusion reactor. It might take 25 years to fail. The failure may not be that your idea doesn't work, but because some other kind of reactor comes along that is a better business (ie, cheaper). At this point, you are now a world class expert at a technology that…

There are some problems that just aren't amenable to the startup approach. The Manhattan Project wasn't three guys in a garage living on ramen noodles for a year. Neither was the Apollo program. Some problems just require huge amounts of people, money and time to crack -- and even then, as you correctly note, there's no guarantee you'll actually be the one to crack them. (Ask the Germans who worked on their A-bomb project, or the Russians who worked on their moon shot.)

The problem is that, when you're a VC, the only model you have to apply to problems is the startup model. And when all you have is a hammer, etc.

Re: Hard Startups

#304

Post by olau » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

acidburnNSA wrote: post #299

pfdietz wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lots of people still in fission and fusion are assuming trouble with renewables related to intermittency, land use, grid integration, EROI, raw materials That's whistling past the graveyard, I think. Land use is demonstrably not a problem. Grid integration has long history of naysayers drawing a line in the sand and renewables blowing past it. EROI is just fine and getting better. Raw materials are also not a probl…

Of course there are peer reviewed studies that agree and disagree with everything you say here. It's just a question of how how reliable the peer-reviewed studies on each side are at this point. This strengthens my point that it's ok for some investors to look into improving nuclear. It's also extremely popular to say that 100% renewables are a done deal because it's such a great story and feeling. Most serious deep-…

You can calculate how much power is needed based on past data. That part is complicated, but not really unreliable, although of course the demand may look different in 20 years.

And yes, we're going to need extra longer-term storage, but less than you'd think (IIRC up to 10% for a large grid).

Nobody knows the cost of that storage. You can calculate an upper bound by using today's prices, but once these things actually come in demand, new ideas are going to spring up and the prices are probably going to fall, just like it did for PV and wind turbines.

It seems to me that investing in nuclear tech today is a really risky proposition.

Re: Hard Startups

#305

Post by pinot » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 4:50 PM UTC

jimkri wrote: post #77

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 fi…

It's a field that has many startups and government basic research for decades. Power plant flue gas seems to be the primary feedstock people are interested today.

Re: Hard Startups

#306

Post by tikiman163 » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 5:09 PM UTC

This is basically drivel. My personal motto is "we chose to go to the moon, not because it is easy, but because it is hard!" The trend of startup failures has nothing to do with the difficulty of the problem they were trying to solve, and everything to do with the fact that smart people can spot when a startup is just a copy of something else already successful.

Yes, startups doing photos sharing apps increased after Instagram was created. That's because most people are idiots and just won't realize they aren't going to disrupt a new industry. Venture capitalists also frequently invest in failures because they too are idiots.

The reason there are only 2 startups trying to do cold fusion energy is because nobody has any clue on how to make that happen, where as social media apps can be designed and built in an assembly line.

Yes, trying to invent a new industry is infinitely harder, but for the most part we all know that startups aren't going to invent successful cold fusion. Either someone will invent it by accident, or some chemist/physicist is going to figure it out as part of a think tank funded by either the government or by one of the existing fortune 50 companies.

Picking a hard problem to solve can't make it easier for your startup to succeed because the hard startups are basically trying to get retardedly lucky. There is no mythical group of employees who you can identify as being the group who will invent cold fusion, which is why these kinds of startups always fail. Funding one of them is throwing money away, where as funding a photo sharing app has a small chance of breaking even if they at least have a unique selling point.

Re: Hard Startups

#307

Post by jwatte » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #171

FiatLuxDave wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Former fusion startup founder here. This is a very good point. My startup took 6 years to fail and much of our competition at the time is still at it 20 years later. There are a number of things which are also impedance mismatches between the typical SV startup mode and hard startups. One of these is the failure path. When an adtech startup fails, the founders just go get well-paying jobs at a FAANG, or at least that…

That came up recently in connection with a VR-related startup. They've been working for years, and they just canned the project and laid off about 60 people. It's all in-house code. So now the people laid off have to find new jobs. They don't have any of the buzzwords resume scanners want. Heroku? No. React? No. Unreal Engine? No. Unity? No. SpatialOS? No. WebAsm? No. Kubernetes? No. Docker? No. AWS? No. Javascript?…

Facebook and Google hire tons of C++ programmers. Despite what you may think, the back-end of the internet runs on C++.

Also: If you've done VR development, you have marketable skills. Unreal Engine is C++, and learning the specifics of the engine isn't particularly hard. If you're willing to work under the low salaries and often poor management found in the gaming industry, that shouldn't be too much of a barrier.

There's also gaming-adjacent companies, like Epic, Unity, Roblox, Twitch, and so on.

Re: Hard Startups

#308

Post by acidburnNSA » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

olau wrote: post #304

acidburnNSA wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course there are peer reviewed studies that agree and disagree with everything you say here. It's just a question of how how reliable the peer-reviewed studies on each side are at this point. This strengthens my point that it's ok for some investors to look into improving nuclear. It's also extremely popular to say that 100% renewables are a done deal because it's such a great story and feeling. Most serious deep-…

You can calculate how much power is needed based on past data. That part is complicated, but not really unreliable, although of course the demand may look different in 20 years. And yes, we're going to need extra longer-term storage, but less than you'd think (IIRC up to 10% for a large grid). Nobody knows the cost of that storage. You can calculate an upper bound by using today's prices, but once these things actual…

Given the uncertainties and low worldwide penetration of low-carbon anything, I think there's a reasonable case to be made for the opposite conclusion: it may be risky to not invest in nuclear.

Obviously this conclusion is far less popular.

Fortunately investing in various clean energy tech is not a zero sum game because of various investor's predilection to invest in one sector or the other but often not both.

Re: Hard Startups

#309

Post by jwatte » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 5:47 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #292

lastres0rt wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Food deserts ARE a serious problem. Growing [X] amount of produce locally would provide a much-needed source of cheap produce and/or revenue to the local community. There's also general health benefits of the added greenery consuming excess CO2. Even better, captured rain runoff goes back into the soil sooner rather than becoming further concentrated with toxic chemicals before it reenters the ecosystem.

> There's also general health benefits of the added greenery consuming excess CO2. Added greenery only consumes excess carbon dioxide if you harvest it and bury it in a very, very deep hole, where neither sun nor oxygen can reach it. Otherwise, it only briefly buffers some amount of carbon.

If it increases total biomass, then it does on average sequester that additional biomass. And even if you burn it, well, the next crop will sequester it again. The main problem with burning fossil fuels is that we dug them up out of the ground, rather than take them from replenishing sources that draw CO2 out of the atmosphere.

Re: Hard Startups

#310

Post by jwatte » Thu, Feb 27, 2020, 5:50 PM UTC

buzzkillington wrote: post #241

lmm wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of money matters too. I'm sure if we were willing to plough 5% of the US budget into the VC approach we'd see bigger results.

It took 5 years to go from the creation of Nasa to a manned Mercury-Atlas. We still haven't seen any of the space startups match a manned Mercury-Redsone, which took 3 years. During the Mercury program Nasa was using on average 0.4% of the federal budget, which was little over 2 billion a year in 2020 dollars. The big spending was on the Apollo missions which are pipe dreams for any of the current space startups 15 y…

The safety culture and degree of acceptable risk is somewhat different now, from when we were sure we'd get nuked by the Russians in a month. (And also still thought smoking was healthy.)