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What Happened to the Future?

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Re: What Happened to the Future?

#71

Post by VladRussian »

zb wrote: post #47

> Not all technology is created equal: there is a difference between Pong and the Concorde Yes, Pong was simply a clever design making use of existing technology that made shirtloads of money for a bunch of people and spawned entire industries. Whereas Concorde - a "real technological development" - was a giant money pit fed from government slush funds for decades, punctuated only by occasional lethal consequences fo…

so Concorde and SR71 is "a giant money pit fed from government slush funds for decades, punctuated only by occasional lethal consequences for its passengers and bystanders. (Not to mention that it was a technological cul-de-sac.) " ? How about X15 or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wan_Hu ?

Nah, man, you're not a romantic, and nobody would name a Moon crater after you... well, except of course the case when you make a sh!tload of money off the Pong and buy the honor.

Re: What Happened to the Future?

#72

Post by Joakal »

ez77 wrote: post #59
natch wrote: post #23

What happened to HTML? If this were formatted with web standards, I could resize the fonts, scroll with my browser's built-in preferred scrolling mechanisms that aren't chunky, laggy, and painful, and I could actually read it. I'm not the only one to comment on this, but apparently whoever did this page is dense enough about web standards that the point needs to be repeated. How do you run a VC and not get this? My o…

Out of curiosity, is it possible to know what system they used to style their website? Maybe they developed it, but just in case I ask.

They appear to be using WordPress 3.0.3 with a custom Javascript based template called Founders Fund 2011.

Re: What Happened to the Future?

#73

Post by ericd »

temphn wrote: post #66
discreteevent wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook Vs (email + IM) = Telephone Vs (post + telegraph). Really? You think that these two jumps in technology are equivalent in the difference they have made to peoples lives? I don't use facebook but I would not be able to work without telephone and the internet.

Yes, probably so. Facebook means that you can keep up with people (who's getting married, who moved, who had children) without emailing them. If you have 500 friends, each with a feed with 50 posts, you are talking about 25000 possible emails. Those emails would never be sent, because they are usually individually way below the importance threshold for an email. So, by this calculation at least, it's at least a 1-2 o…

That's assuming that knowing the minutiae of the lives of people who you don't talk to frequently is important. I'd say that that's actually a huge waste of time, and distracts from actual socializing by making you feel like you're keeping up with people without actually doing so.

Re: What Happened to the Future?

#74

Post by scottkduncan »

athom wrote: post #30
natch wrote: post #23

What happened to HTML? If this were formatted with web standards, I could resize the fonts, scroll with my browser's built-in preferred scrolling mechanisms that aren't chunky, laggy, and painful, and I could actually read it. I'm not the only one to comment on this, but apparently whoever did this page is dense enough about web standards that the point needs to be repeated. How do you run a VC and not get this? My o…

No kidding! The best part is, it's all so unnecessary! When I saw the blank page, I decided to have a peek at the source, an lo and behold, there's the essay! Copy it to a text editor, turn on dynamic word wrap, and... enjoy?

That's what I did too. Is there a browser this reads well in? Founders Fund should briefly forget about solving more important problems and just stop creating new usability ones.

Re: What Happened to the Future?

#75

Post by iron_ball »

natch wrote: post #23

What happened to HTML? If this were formatted with web standards, I could resize the fonts, scroll with my browser's built-in preferred scrolling mechanisms that aren't chunky, laggy, and painful, and I could actually read it. I'm not the only one to comment on this, but apparently whoever did this page is dense enough about web standards that the point needs to be repeated. How do you run a VC and not get this? My o…

Didn't work at all on my Android phone.

Re: What Happened to the Future?

#76

Post by robryan »

Is their really much a technical problem preventing flying cars? I think it's similar to space in that it isn't overly energy efficient as I'd assume withut completely redesigning our cities you would need vertical takeoff. Then there is a lot of safety considerations, I think self driving cars would need to be accepted well before anything could happen with flying cars.

Re: What Happened to the Future?

#77

Post by fractallyte »

VladRussian wrote: post #26

the human race will get the flying car and the fusion when it is ready for it ( technologically these innovations, at the level of successful prototypes have existed for last 50 years). What would we do with such technology if it was in widespread use today? Flying car - sprawl development even further. Fusion - com'n, are we ready for a wide availability of a high flux high energy neutron generating devices? We are…

'If human thought is a growth, like all other growths, its logic is without foundation of its own, and is only the adjusting constructiveness of all other growing things. A tree cannot find out, as it were, how to blossom, until comes blossom-time. A social growth cannot find out the use of steam engines, until comes steam-engine-time.' - Charles Fort, Lo!

Re: What Happened to the Future?

#78

Post by clobber »

btcoal wrote: post #41
rokhayakebe wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How?

Facebook has improved my life as well. I went to high school in one city, college in one 1,000 miles away. Have since worked in cities all over the world. I don't know how I would manage to keep even a tenuous grasp on all the connections I have with people in these different places without Facebook. Admittedly, these are not and never will be deep social bonds I am maintaing, but that is hardly the point. There is v…

Stop. There is no value in maintaining shallow social connections. Work on making your actual friendships stronger instead of having 1000 acquaintances on Facebook. Your life has not been improved by Facebook beyond regular old email.

Re: What Happened to the Future?

#79

Post by clobber »

scott_s wrote: post #63
discreteevent wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook Vs (email + IM) = Telephone Vs (post + telegraph). Really? You think that these two jumps in technology are equivalent in the difference they have made to peoples lives? I don't use facebook but I would not be able to work without telephone and the internet.

I many people that just didn't use email or IM much, but have integrated Facebook into their lives. It's their main way of maintaining communication with many people.

Facebook is a glorified vBulletin and IM client. It's a time waster that most people use to e-stalk or share meaningless information. I think the sooner we drop the mantra that it's "engrained in our lives," the sooner we move on to real innovation. Here's a typical day on Facebook: http://i.imgur.com/ub51D.jpg

Re: What Happened to the Future?

#80

Post by iamelgringo »

thinkcomp wrote: post #55
iamelgringo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my company has been rejected by sixty (that's six-zero) VC firms in the past five years Dude, you're just getting warmed up to pitching if you've only been rejected by 60 VC firms. Google got rejected by 55. Pandora by close to 300. Adam Rifkin's first startup was doing AJAX in 2000, and he got rejected by 176 before raising $8M from Kleiner Perkins. HR's job is to screen through job applicants and throw away resumes…

I definitely appreciate your support and you make good points about Pandora, Google and companies like them. However, from what I've read, it took Google five months to rack up those rejections, and I've spent five years. That doesn't make it impossible, but for a number of reasons, it shouldn't take that long. Aside from the given entrepreneur, it harms industry and ultimately the country when it does.

but for a number of reasons, it shouldn't take that long.

I totally hear you. It _shouldn't_, but it does.

I know we've talked about this before, Aaron, but I think you have to work like hell for the next 6 months to get people using _some part of your system. You've had uptake in libraries... try to get your system in as many libraries as possible. Get some press for that uptake and traction. You do this really well. Then, pitch 100 VC's in 3 months: 3 a day for 93 days, and raise money on that basis. If you can't raise money then, build traction like hell for another 6 months, mail monthly updates to those 100 VCs and then talk to the most interested 30 VCs again.

Your pitch: take on credit cards and beat them is _huge. I genuinely believe that you can do it. But, to do it all at once would probably take $100M up front as a series A round, and then a couple of follow rounds of $500M in series B and C.

Most VC's aren't going to believe that you'll be able to do it, and certainly won't give you $100M in a series A.

I suspect you need to show them that you can perform really well on one, small aspect of your system, and they'll probably be willing to give you money to expand.

I have no doubt you'll be able to do this. You've been doggedly working at this for 5 years. You have a very cool working product. At some point, I have no doubt you'll raise the money that you need. And, you can have your revenge in 10 years when you IPO. :)

The stories of people having money thrown at them by VC's for a business plan make for great TechCrunch reading, and it hits the main stream press, "The Bubble is popping! The Bubble is inflating! The Bubble is about to pop!". But, I talk with around a hundreds early entrepreneurs every month at Hackers & Founders, and _no _one is having money thrown at them. For every Color, or AirBnB, there are 3000 founders that pitch 60 times before they're able to raise.

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