Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

It’s Time to Build

a16z.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

371–380 of 1001 posts

Re: It’s Time to Build

#371

Post by pmarca »

trimbo wrote: post #42

> Why shouldn’t regulators and taxpayers demand that Harvard build? Wait, wut? Last I checked, Harvard is a private institution. Besides, Harvard produces its graduates because they can be picky on who they can admit. Why would we assume that Harvard can scale to provide a "Harvard education" to someone who didn't qualify to make it in today?

Harvard is subsidized by the federal government and the American taxpayer several ways. It benefits from federal student loan programs. It receives federal research grants. It is allowed to be a tax-exempt institution. And it is allowed to own a tax-exempt endowment. Normal private institutions in America have none of those.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#372

Post by pmarca »

nerfhammer wrote: post #73
trimbo wrote: post #42

> Why shouldn’t regulators and taxpayers demand that Harvard build? Wait, wut? Last I checked, Harvard is a private institution. Besides, Harvard produces its graduates because they can be picky on who they can admit. Why would we assume that Harvard can scale to provide a "Harvard education" to someone who didn't qualify to make it in today?

Andreessen's point might not be that the government should force them to do anything necessarily, but that no one even expects them to do anything. They have 40 billion dollars in the bank. No one expects them to do anything with it. The government, donors, anyone in Harvard, the proverbial man on the street, none has an expectation that they should try to do anything greater than whatever they're doing now.

Yes, exactly.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#373

Post by pmarca »

soared wrote: post #235

Tony Hseih tried “to build”. With hundreds of millions of dollars, international renown, support of experts, and the ability to buy anything the project needed. It failed massively. We don’t have Most of these fancy things because either there isn’t demand, or the idea is good but it’s way more difficult to execute than we expect. https://www.inc.com/leigh-buchanan/kingdom-of-happiness.html

What's happened to the price of Las Vegas real estate since Tony bought his section?

Re: It’s Time to Build

#374

Post by lookdangerous »

jbkiv wrote: post #348
oxymoron wrote: post #70

I'm in the process of reading _Why Nation Fails_. The central thesis is that the rich and poor countries are separated by inclusive vs extractive institutions. The extractive institutions are characterised by elites that attempt to defend their own wealth and status by maintaining the status quo and resisting the creative destruction that may threaten that position. It seems to resonate a bit here, when Marc speaks o…

I respectfully disagree about what it takes to be approved as a health insurance COMPANY (as opposed to a broker). In fact I am quite happy that regulators require you to show that 1) you know what you are doing 2) you have a massive balance sheet to protect your customers if they need it. The point 2 is super important in the context of VC-backed companies. There is simply no way to build a massive insurance company…

I wonder what you think about the necessity of the health insurance industry? Seeing as how apparently it began as a sort of subscription service to keep hospitals afloat when beds were empty... It is a lot to wrap my mind around, but I have the general feeling that insurance drives the prices of health care way up and we would be better if we could all pay out of pocket for most things, but be covered by a true 'risk mitigation' insurance solution that would kick in when indeed we got cancer, or got in a car accident or the like.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#375

Post by pmarca »

natch wrote: post #327
pmarca wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solar and wind are great, but they don't provide continuous power. We need them, and nuclear.

Another person who dismisses or is unaware of the existence of grid scale batteries. Nuclear could help but it is so centralized it really puts all control in the hands of big corporate and government types, with cost overruns and bankruptcies funded by ratepayers and taxpayers. “Too cheap to meter” was a lie yet the same lie continues to be recycled when talking about the next promised generation. No thank you. I’ll…

Build grid scale batteries too!

Re: It’s Time to Build

#376

Post by pmarca »

aazaa wrote: post #99

> ... The things we build in huge quantities, like computers and TVs, drop rapidly in price. The things we don’t, like housing, schools, and hospitals, skyrocket in price. What’s the American dream? The opportunity to have a home of your own, and a family you can provide for. We need to break the rapidly escalating price curves for housing, education, and healthcare, to make sure that every American can realize the d…

Compare, as another example, the price curve for LASIK laser eye surgery which is purchased out of pocket, to the price curve for every surgical procedure reimbursed by insurance.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#377

Post by pmarca »

throwaway1777 wrote: post #98

Westworld spoiler I’d have to watch again to be sure, but I think the scene in Westworld in Singapore is actually in Singapore because Paris was destroyed. There are scenes in futuristic sf also that show Fremont street among others.

"When we were trying to think about what the future could look like, we scouted and examined a bunch of areas, and that's how we came to Singapore. There's nowhere that looks like Singapore; it's absolutely beautiful on a purely aesthetic level. And it's incredibly different from modernism in other cities, even the lines of it; when you look out of the window (of The Esplanade Theatre), you have these, linear lines, but it's cross cut by these curving rows, which on film always looks so beautiful. There's a different texture to everything and the bounce from the water off of the glass there. The other thing that’s really interesting is the incorporation of nature.

Singapore has done this incredible job of integrating nature into the city. We're staying in the Parkroyal on Pickering and there's greenery everywhere, just crawling up there. There’s a kind of beauty to a skyscraper."

https://sg.style.yahoo.com/interview-westworld-creator-lisa-...

Re: It’s Time to Build

#378

Post by pascalxus »

avarun wrote: post #299
KirinDave wrote: post #167

I find this essay to be extremely frustrating, and a good example of the attitude I've personally witnessed Andreessen have in the few interactions I've had with him directly. > Is the problem capitalism? I’m with Nicholas Stern when he says that capitalism is how we take care of people we don’t know — all of these fields are highly lucrative already and should be prime stomping grounds for capitalist investment, goo…

How does this make any sense? You wrote this long, neatly articulated response, but your central premise is entirely flawed. Marc Andreessen and Andreessen Horowitz and other venture capitalists don't have a monopoly over the future (or current) direction of our society). Hell, they don't even have a plurality of control. The things that Marc speaks of in this article that are fundamentally broken in the US are housi…

This is exactly why we need innovation in politics. Imagine for a second, that you declare a region, say 1 square mile, somewhere as almost completely free of all regulations. Then, let all the companies that want to build there, go nuts and build whatever they want. This then serves as an innovation incubator, and an example for the rest of the nation as to what can be built, when we allow it to be built.

Imagine the speed of innovation when it's not regulated. Remember, in the early days of the internet, we had companies and application popping up all over the place. FB, had 100,000 apps in less than 1 year. What allowed such quick pace of innovation is the concept of permissionless innovation. We desperately need this to happen in the real world: maybe not the whole world, but at least some small region, perhaps a new city, or a square mile block.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#379

Post by [deleted] »

worik wrote: post #318
amasad wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don't have it because building these things requires long term investments and folks like Marc and his investors are not interested in long term investments. I don't know where you get this from but as far as VC goes a16z are especially willing to take long-term bets. Case in point, when we pitched them, we explicitly said it's going to take us a decade to achieve our goals and they were okay with that.

There is a problem. Ten years is not long term. In the long term we are all dead. So we have to want to do these things for people who are not born yet and who will never pay us or pay us back or be able to even thank us. We have to do these things because these things are the right thing to do. That will decrease our wealth. Now please explain how capitalism can do that?

[deleted]

Re: It’s Time to Build

#380

Post by golergka »

MattGaiser wrote: post #358
harryh wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uber, Dropbox, AirBnB, Slack, Pinterest. Long term un-profitable venture backed software companies are practically a cliche at this point.

They are not long term unprofitable for the VCs. Those companies have been through rounds and rounds of growth which has brought in other investors (i.e. who VCs can sell to if they desire). What about the company that would need to labour for 5 years before they get the MVP out the door?

They are profitable to VCs exactly because system for long-term thinking works, it just consists of different levels of investors, with different risk/reward goals, handing over the same company, still long-term, still unprofitable, one to another. VCs are just one of the first levels of this system.
Post reply on HN