“Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs • Hacker News Board

Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs

#211

Post by jonathankoren » Tue, Dec 19, 2023, 2:02 AM UTC

llbeansandrice wrote: post #59

jakey_bakey wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do they still call themselves founding engineer at Series C? Just seems like a cute way to convince graduates it's worth being paid 1/4 what Google/Meta could cough up.

Is there any real benefit to taking ~$160k and 1% as a “founding” engineer? We’re not even close to series C yet but it’s starting to feel like I need to be more aggressive about compensation or a role change. If you don’t become a +$100mm company (and have the ability to cash out at that position) it seems to be a pretty rough deal honestly.

No. As someone said earlier, “Founding” is a scam title. It’s just sparkle. If they’re passing that out post-A, they must really think you’re a sucker, because that’s nowhere near founding.

Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs

#212

Post by Qwertious » Tue, Dec 19, 2023, 7:16 AM UTC

j16sdiz wrote: post #171

oblio wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A less cynical take is that it allows you to run at a loss for a very long time as you build revenue and market share You're saying the same thing as the grandparent comment and in various places in the world this would be considered dumping/subsidizing and illegal. Yet here we are and the enshittification continues.

I think dumping/subsidizing is illegal only in the context of international trade.

Dumping is absolutely illegal in domestic contexts. The famous one being supermarkets who undercut local fruit shops until they go out of business, then jack up the prices once they have a monopoly in the local area.

Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs

#213

Post by lazyant » Tue, Dec 19, 2023, 1:42 PM UTC

> much like the Inuit people, who have many words for snow,

this is a myth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eskimo_words_for_snow

Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs

#214

Post by blitzar » Tue, Dec 19, 2023, 3:01 PM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #193

blitzar wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“I LOVE THIS FOUNDER" ... "I am a 10 out of 10"

Hat tip for the SBF VC quote. If anyone else doesn't know these (now truly meme-worthy quotes), stick the quote in Google to see VCs gushing about SBF & FTX.

Its even better that the quotes of VCs gushing about SBF & FTX is in a puff piece written by the VCs themselves about how special they were that they could identify the real thing.

Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs

#215

Post by dimitry12 » Tue, Dec 19, 2023, 6:02 PM UTC

satvikpendem wrote: post #210

97-109-107 wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not dismissive of businesses like Lemlist, but would propose another angle. I find that businesses that are spin out from agency models are particular, inherit a strong characteristic and outlook similar to agencies. This is not a critique of their model per say, but an observation that leads me to be hesitant to take advice from agency-born models and apply to more typical product-focused B2B or B2C settings. Th…

True, most agency companies may make money but their products definitely have quite a lot of room for improvement, since the founders are not engineers by trade and thus there is no permeation of engineering culture as in other tech companies. However, I will say that it would be good for tech people to learn the marketing side if only by doing it semi-professionally for a client, just to see what goes into it. Then,…

Can you please expand on the topic of "learn the marketing side if only by doing it semi-professionally for a client"?

I mean, one side of this spectrum is doing affiliate marketing or direct-sales/MLM. Other point on this spectrum might be for an engineer to go get hired as a social media "manager" (lots of "jobs" like this on Upwork).

What possibilities do you have in mind?

Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs

#216

Post by vram22 » Fri, Dec 22, 2023, 6:32 PM UTC

mdekkers wrote: post #166

vram22 wrote: post #51

I wonder how many here got the second paragraph of the OP. Second sentence of second paragraph, actually.

I hope nobody needed pointing out that it is (obvious) satire

I didn't, at least. That's what I implied by my comment.

Re: “Yes” means “no”: The language of VCs

#217

Post by est31 » Sat, Dec 23, 2023, 11:29 PM UTC

VirusNewbie wrote: post #201

est31 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When looking for CEOs, they don't look for top notch engineering talent, they look for top notch CEO talent, where talent means capability. CEOs do need deep technical understanding, anything else and you have an enviroment that scares away engineers, but they don't need to be the best engineer in the entire company. If you've been to Harvard, you are on a first name basis with highly ranking finance people. It's not…

This sounds totally backwards, but I say this as someone who has no personal experience raising money, so maybe you're a VC or a founder? If someone can get in front of VCs, presumably it doesn't matter if they know a bunch of other rich people from school. I really don't get the sense that VCs are impressed by someone's ability to convince some nepo hedge fund manager to invest a few million. I think they're impress…

I'm neither VC or founder, what I wrote just bases on assumptions. It definitely helps my arguments I think that successful tech founders have went to Harvard, like Paul Graham, Bill Gates, Nathan Blecharczyk, and Mark Zuckerberg.