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TV series about startup failures

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Re: TV series about startup failures

#61

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

mellosouls wrote: post #55
mnky9800n wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What technology has come out in the last decade that isn't an increment or miniaturization?

GPT! We are in a transformative moment right now with GPT3 onwards, as great as anything in the computer era.

Agreed that AI is transformative. That this for kids they grew up with the internet is their epoch moment that those of us they saw the internet come already had.

However… I don’t think it counts exactly. When you look at the trillions that have been dumped into basically “ take the best and brightest in the world, and then get them to increase advertising performance by 1% a year” and the money effort and time put into AI, thst the big players were caught completely off guard by AI, it’s more of a mistake than an organic technology evolution.

Other than AI, what seriously happened in the last decade? Where in terms of user product has tech innovated?

Re: TV series about startup failures

#62

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

Mistletoe wrote: post #40
blantonl wrote: post #27

The "problem" is we really are in an technology revolution similar to the industrial revolution 200-300 years ago. For every 100 tech startup businesses that don't generate a penny of profit and are propped up by hyper valuations and stock prices, there are companies like Facebook and Google and Apple that absolutely print money in profits. That in turn covers the outlay by venture money. All those companies that bur…

What if we have exited that tech revolution era already? I don’t recall a lot of successful tech innovation or revolution in the last decade but I recall a lot of scams. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/froth.asp And now we are about to get AI froth that will follow the same Gartner hype cycle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle I wonder where you guys would place us now? I’d say Peak of Inflated Ex…

Isn’t a number of scams almost tied to the era of free money as well?

Re: TV series about startup failures

#63

Post by WanderPanda »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #56
epolanski wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what your African friends think, that's literally a very huge part of the startup ecosystem anywhere. I have worked in few startup incubators, and most of the companies I've seen are merely interested in getting a good evaluation and getting bought from someone else. The amount of startups I've seen with the interest of actually making any "profit" is very low. I think this is also a reflection of several…

The era of Free Money couldn’t end fast enough. We’re likely in for some hard times, but it wasn’t sustainable, and we had a 10 year period with almost zero innovation. I hope it works out, because seriously the last decade plus shouldn’t have gone down the way it did.

Incredible opportunity costs, considering e.g. Google could probably go through Twitter like, 80-90% cuts and still stay functioning. Keeping the most capable people in golden handcuffs for a decade is quite a tragedy. On the other hand they still worked on many open source projects so it could have probably been worse

Re: TV series about startup failures

#64

Post by throwawaysleep »

epolanski wrote: post #12
babayega2 wrote: post #9

One of the funny/sad consequences of watching Silicon Valley, is that a lot of my friends (in my African country where only 4% has electricity) think that the startup need to expand no matter what, even if it has no viable business model, you can run a "budgetivore" business for many years like Linkedin/Amazon and in the end you will find a business model. So imagine. Instead of building good and sound startups that…

That's not what your African friends think, that's literally a very huge part of the startup ecosystem anywhere. I have worked in few startup incubators, and most of the companies I've seen are merely interested in getting a good evaluation and getting bought from someone else. The amount of startups I've seen with the interest of actually making any "profit" is very low. I think this is also a reflection of several…

> I have worked in few startup incubators, and most of the companies I've seen are merely interested in getting a good evaluation and getting bought from someone else.

Startup incubators seem like they would be biased towards those looking for an easy pre-paved path. I participated for one in university and less than half of that cohort was interested in ever making money or getting traction at all, including myself.

We were there to polish our resumes for job hunting upon graduation.

My team didn't make a single sales call or engage with a single customer. The program managers brought us an extremely large potential government contract (15 million) and we turned them down as it was after the program ended and we were planning to be job hunting.

Re: TV series about startup failures

#65

Post by ghaff »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #61
mellosouls wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPT! We are in a transformative moment right now with GPT3 onwards, as great as anything in the computer era.

Agreed that AI is transformative. That this for kids they grew up with the internet is their epoch moment that those of us they saw the internet come already had. However… I don’t think it counts exactly. When you look at the trillions that have been dumped into basically “ take the best and brightest in the world, and then get them to increase advertising performance by 1% a year” and the money effort and time put i…

It's just "boring plumbing" but software server infrastructure (containers, Kubernetes, and everything cloud-native associated) has basically competely changed in the last 10 years.

Re: TV series about startup failures

#66

Post by WanderPanda »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #61
mellosouls wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPT! We are in a transformative moment right now with GPT3 onwards, as great as anything in the computer era.

Agreed that AI is transformative. That this for kids they grew up with the internet is their epoch moment that those of us they saw the internet come already had. However… I don’t think it counts exactly. When you look at the trillions that have been dumped into basically “ take the best and brightest in the world, and then get them to increase advertising performance by 1% a year” and the money effort and time put i…

But how do you increase advertising revenue? Isn‘t that also a ML problem in the end?

Re: TV series about startup failures

#67

Post by Eisenstein »

toyg wrote: post #21
LeonM wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too bad that TJ Miller (Elrich Bachman) probably won't be associated with it.

I can actually see a humbled TJ Miller taking a SV spinoff job to relaunch his career, at some point. A prequel would be challenging though, because of aging.

TJ Miller's problem is not that he needs to be 'humbled', his problem is that he has a reduced ability to control judgement and inhibition[0] due to having had a large part of his frontal lobe removed[1]. He is probably not going to get 'better' behavior wise.

> "expert medical analyses and reports regarding the defendant’s prior brain surgery and its continued neurological impacts ... cast doubt upon the requisite legal element of intent to commit the charged offense.” [2]

> Miller had undergone brain surgery several years ago after having a hemorrhage and multiple seizures. He said “a golf ball-sized” piece of his frontal lobe was removed.[1]

[0] Conjecture based on knowledge of neuropsychology

[1] https://deadline.com/2021/07/t-j-miller-bomb-threat-charge-d...

[2] https://deadline.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/tj-miller-WM...

Re: TV series about startup failures

#68

Post by nologic01 »

babayega2 wrote: post #9

One of the funny/sad consequences of watching Silicon Valley, is that a lot of my friends (in my African country where only 4% has electricity) think that the startup need to expand no matter what, even if it has no viable business model, you can run a "budgetivore" business for many years like Linkedin/Amazon and in the end you will find a business model. So imagine. Instead of building good and sound startups that…

Its a world out of balance. Problems fester if there is no money in solving them, which seems to be the case for vast parts of our experience. Yet talented and eager people are unemployed, or their efforts are thrown away in endless churn.

Its a systemic failure of the organizational networks and legal structures that should bring people together, with the right incentives, to develop lasting solutions. People dont need billions to get incentivised. There is nothing wrong with building a small company that fits a niche. The unicorn mania is deeply sick.

There is so much knowledge nowadays, so much talent - before we even get to augmented powes using tech - that the situation will start bordering on the insane.

The challenge is that financial-economic systems are so tightly tied to power that they cant evolve. What is clearly needed in many parts of the world, and definitely in silicon valley, is to dismantle the adulation of super-sized entities, ultra rich etc. and encourage a strong middle class and SME enterprize. This was always the backbone of stable and prospering societies.

Re: TV series about startup failures

#70

Post by parpfish »

tpmx wrote: post #33
LeonM wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too bad that TJ Miller (Elrich Bachman) probably won't be associated with it.

Pretty much the entire cast was great, but the standouts were, IMO: TJ Miller (Erlich) Martin Starr (Gilfoyle) Zach Woods (Jared) Kumail Nanjiani (Dinesh) (in roughly this order) [Honorary mention: Henry Phillips (John, the datacenter guy)]

So… every main character except Thomas Middleditch?

I think this show exemplified the power of a good ensemble. Any one of the characters would have been annoying by themselves, but put them next to each other and it’s hilarious

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