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It’s Time to Build

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Re: It’s Time to Build

#831

Post by jeremyjh »

aguyfromnb wrote: post #713
quietthrow wrote: post #313

Since you are reading why nations fail I would like to recommend a pairing. How democracies die by Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky. The central thesis here is parties are the gatekeepers of democracies and when they put party before nation they erode the democracy that eventually fails. More often it’s a slow degrade than a sudden spectacular collapse. The erosion paves way for leaders that are more “spectacular”…

> GOP put party win before a nation by agreeing to nominate an unfit individual for office. They failed as gatekeepers. Why do we want corrupt politicians as "gatekeepers" to anything? The Democrats did a fine job "gatekeeping" Sanders from the 2016 and 2020 nomination, to what end? By the way, nothing will ever get done in the US until the bitter partisanship ceases. Most of what both parties do is political theatre…

> The Democrats did a fine job "gatekeeping" Sanders from the 2016 and 2020 nomination, to what end?

I don't understand this perspective. Sanders lost because he lost primary elections. That happened because democrats didn't believe in him as a candidate. Many of us have been steadfast in our disbelief for years due only to listening to what he himself says about what he wants to do. Why discredit our opinions this way?

Re: It’s Time to Build

#832

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

danimal88 wrote: post #784

I build tech enabled, innovative physical infrastructure solutions for buildings. People do want them. VCs, less so, unless it's as high margin as a photo sharing app, destructive and lucrative as consumable businesses like Kurig, etc. Consumers don't know what they want until the possibilities are presented to them. VCs are literally the gate keepers of much innovative possibilty at the early phases of enterprises.…

What happened with SBA loans that forced everyone into needing VC funding? Didn't people used to just get SBA loans to fund inventions and small businesses? Now it seems like everyone defaults to VC funding.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#833

Post by thu2111 »

simonspurr wrote: post #778
thu2111 wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're actually not running out of ventilators anywhere. Existing installed base is sufficient and moreover, it turned out the federal government had a large stockpile anyway, which rather invalidates the central thesis of the article re: lack of preparedness. The claim about ventilators was one of the first dodgy claims I noticed but really the entire first part of the article is a pack of lies. Andreessen says: "We…

Please could you link some of the papers you mention on the scale of the coronavirus problem? I'm not doubting they exist, I'd just be interested to have a read.

This page has many links to such papers:

https://swprs.org/a-swiss-doctor-on-covid-19/

Re: It’s Time to Build

#834

Post by danimal88 »

pc86 wrote: post #790
danimal88 wrote: post #784

I build tech enabled, innovative physical infrastructure solutions for buildings. People do want them. VCs, less so, unless it's as high margin as a photo sharing app, destructive and lucrative as consumable businesses like Kurig, etc. Consumers don't know what they want until the possibilities are presented to them. VCs are literally the gate keepers of much innovative possibilty at the early phases of enterprises.…

> I build tech enabled, innovative physical infrastructure solutions Can you explain what it is you do without copying and pasting a line from your pitch deck? This sentence could literally mean any of at least a dozen completely different things.

Sure. Tbh, I didn't really want this comment to be an opportunity to pitch my company or make it too specific about our solution as there are many different types of solutions, categories and problems that could use innovation capital that are second in line.

flair.co is us.

We have taken money from investors, those that aren't afraid of energy problems, that aren't afraid of energy efficiency, and that invest in meaningful problems (and some others too, but much better portfolio mixes than most). Things are (minus covid 19) changing. We are already a key transitional electrification solution, we are solving peak problems on the grid, and we are poised through a few partnerships to redefine home energy consumption in North American homes. I'm adding that for context as our website doesn't publicly lay that out.

All that said, I'm so thankful for the investors that we do have. They listened to our larger vision from the get go, focus on meaningful problems, and put their money where their mouth is. Now that we are realizing this vision, they will realize returns and leadership ROI as this particular blog post fades into the past.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#835

Post by Klinky »

yellow_postit wrote: post #533
Klinky wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Supersonic flight is inefficient and noisy. Drones are noisy, a hazard, and significantly more limited due to lithium density than electric cars. High-speed rail is not illegal, but requires huge capital. Uber may not be economically viable, and there are serious concerns about middle-men marketplace corps socializing the liability, benefits, and wage instability costs the gig economy brings with it.

Cars are noisy, a hazard, and in some ways significantly more limited than horses. I actually agree with all your points but also recognize there’s a strong prior bias toward what “I know” works or doesn’t today that can preclude the future possibilities.

There are niche scenarios where a horse is more useful(e.g. rough terrain), but for 99.9% of the scenarios of modern life, a car/motor is more powerful and reliable. Horses are also noisy(clop clop clop) and have been known to trample people.

Supersonic flight was tried with the Concorde and its profitability was iffy due to large subsidies involved in its development, and the handling of BA privatization in the late 80s. There are aerodynamic constraints that make supersonic flight inefficient. Unless we magically change physics, supersonic flight is always going to be significantly less efficient than subsonic flight.

Also the quickest way to make something that is starting to become viable(electric cars), less viable, is to make it have to fly(flying drones). You now have to fight gravity 24/7.

This isn't about dismissing the future, it's about people trying to implement these ideas for the last 70 years, and some spunky "disruptor" startup isn't going to magically change the laws of physics once we "git rid of that dang regulations!"

Re: It’s Time to Build

#836

Post by danimal88 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #832
danimal88 wrote: post #784

I build tech enabled, innovative physical infrastructure solutions for buildings. People do want them. VCs, less so, unless it's as high margin as a photo sharing app, destructive and lucrative as consumable businesses like Kurig, etc. Consumers don't know what they want until the possibilities are presented to them. VCs are literally the gate keepers of much innovative possibilty at the early phases of enterprises.…

What happened with SBA loans that forced everyone into needing VC funding? Didn't people used to just get SBA loans to fund inventions and small businesses? Now it seems like everyone defaults to VC funding.

The issue imo is that SBA is still too narrowly focused on the first 25% or less of commercialization. Perhaps that works for some, I'm not sure. I agree, getting innovation to market is way too dependant upon VC. Worth noting that the traditional banking sector entirely abandoned the innovation economy despite their willingness to fund breweries, coffee shops, restaurants ad nauseum and other business that have huge failure rates but have more collateral and hard assets they can grab on failure.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#837

Post by tekdude »

Jommi wrote: post #400
tekdude wrote: post #388

Regulatory capture is indeed a major underlying cause of a lot of the issues, but who will actually do the political work to fight against it? Someone spent money to capture the regulations in the first place, through lobbying and campaign donations. Who will spend the money to lobby and donate for the cause of undoing that? The "builders"? No, their focus and limited capital is spent on whatever it is they are worki…

This is a great comment, and hopefully I could add some real life example around this, esp with 1) and 2). Uber did this in Europe. Uber pushed, fought and introduced gig-economy employment laws in every country it has operated in EU, specifically around taxi and for hire transport regulation. Uber employed a huge amount of legal and PR counsel to achieve this, with massive lobbying funding. And what has happened? It…

One could view this as Uber making a novice mistake. Instead of just fighting to get rid of employment laws that slowed Uber's business, they should have fought to replace them with laws that entrenched its position.

For example: they could have persuaded legislatures to make gig work legal, but only in the context of "licensed and qualified" platforms. Reaching that status might require submitting forms to government agencies, drafting reports for publication, instituting certain internal policies, having certain credentialed staff on payroll, etc... All tasks that Uber, who would essentially write such a law, would be naturally able to fulfill while newer competitors might not.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#838

Post by usaar333 »

ianleeclark wrote: post #741
usaar333 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The republican stronghold of Texas has one of the lowest covid deaths per capita in the United States, better than even California (which is doing relatively well). Deaths per capita at 16/million is lower than almost anywhere in Western Europe. It's not obvious to me at all you can make a political judgement from covid19.

Texas hasn't even broken 200k tests, but Germany can do that in a week. Texas has bad data.

1. Germany has nearly 3x the population so that difference is less stark than you are implying.

2. Maybe they haven't broken 200k tests because there isn't an obvious population to test when you've had an order of magnitude fewer covid deaths?

Re: It’s Time to Build

#839

Post by raincom »

huntertwo wrote: post #766
roenxi wrote: post #758

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but that would mean ending the middle eastern wars Do you want the terrorists to win? >:| It is a remarkable bellweather of US politics that despite being a relatively peaceful polity the voting public have been unable to drag the country out of a permanent state of expensive and wasteful war. I think both Trump and Obama campaigned as pro-peace candidates so it is a presumably a popular position with voters. US fo…

> US foreign policy is almost inexplicable when it comes to war. The death, destruction and raising a generation Middle Easterners with excellent motivation to hate America seems like a foolish long term strategy. It also doesn't look profitable. Not for the U.S., not for its citizens, but for a certain set of people the constant war is very profitable. And I think you'll find that those that profit from war have con…

War is profitable to energy sector (XLE), aerospace & defense (ITA, XAR). It is profitable to states where oil production is dominant (gulf states, some parts of the midwest). There are many oil billionaires in the states.

Re: It’s Time to Build

#840

Post by usaar333 »

camgunz wrote: post #616
usaar333 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The republican stronghold of Texas has one of the lowest covid deaths per capita in the United States, better than even California (which is doing relatively well). Deaths per capita at 16/million is lower than almost anywhere in Western Europe. It's not obvious to me at all you can make a political judgement from covid19.

It's a little more obvious if you compare places with equal exposure (numbers of European and Asian travelers) and density.

Once you drop the exceptional case of the NY metro area, not really.

What makes Washington, Illinois, and Michigan so bad compared to Texas, Virginia or California?

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