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The Unicorn Boom Is Over, and Startups Are Getting Desperate

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Re: The Unicorn Boom Is Over, and Startups Are Getting Desperate

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those did not emerge from these unicorns, except maybe OpenAI. (Tesla was already public prior to this. Smartphones didn't come from a VC-backed startup.)

>Smartphones didn't come from a VC-backed startup. This isn't entirely correct: both Palm and Apple (the creators of the smart phone) were originally venture-backed.

Yes, but by the time Apple created the smartphone it had long been a large public company. And Palm never created a successful smartphone.

Re: The Unicorn Boom Is Over, and Startups Are Getting Desperate

#23
Quite a magnificent prediction. [0] Those valuations were never going to last.

> Due to the abundance of companies floating on the markets, This decade will introduce a long awaited tech crash that will reset and purge those companies unable to turn a profit. It will get harder for startups to seek capital since most of FAANG and other established companies with strong portfolios will move into novel industries that will invade their market share.

So hardly surprising.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21926473

Re: The Unicorn Boom Is Over, and Startups Are Getting Desperate

#25
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that LLMs are not a benefit? Smartphones? Electric cars?

No, I think there was little benefit besides overinflated tech salaries and founders cashing out in tech unicorns. Smartphones are products of Big Tech, EVs a handful of startups (Tesla, Rivian, Lucid). Most recently, Silicon Valley is a grift ecosystem (fueled by zero interest rate policy) masquerading as innovation and a load bearing component of the economy. We can do without unicorns, the world will be better off…

> (VC as an asset class has poor returns, VC funds make their fees throwing darts pretending to be thought leaders when it’s mostly luck, etc)

It's like the world declaring someone World's Greatest Coin Flipper after and not before that person flips a coin 12 heads in a row.

Re: The Unicorn Boom Is Over, and Startups Are Getting Desperate

#26
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that LLMs are not a benefit? Smartphones? Electric cars?

No, I think there was little benefit besides overinflated tech salaries and founders cashing out in tech unicorns. Smartphones are products of Big Tech, EVs a handful of startups (Tesla, Rivian, Lucid). Most recently, Silicon Valley is a grift ecosystem (fueled by zero interest rate policy) masquerading as innovation and a load bearing component of the economy. We can do without unicorns, the world will be better off…

EVs are the product of big auto manufacturers as well.

Re: The Unicorn Boom Is Over, and Startups Are Getting Desperate

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I think there was little benefit besides overinflated tech salaries and founders cashing out in tech unicorns. Smartphones are products of Big Tech, EVs a handful of startups (Tesla, Rivian, Lucid). Most recently, Silicon Valley is a grift ecosystem (fueled by zero interest rate policy) masquerading as innovation and a load bearing component of the economy. We can do without unicorns, the world will be better off…

EVs are the product of big auto manufacturers as well.

Yes, but they had to be dragged there by Tesla and BYD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma

Re: The Unicorn Boom Is Over, and Startups Are Getting Desperate

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I think there was little benefit besides overinflated tech salaries and founders cashing out in tech unicorns. Smartphones are products of Big Tech, EVs a handful of startups (Tesla, Rivian, Lucid). Most recently, Silicon Valley is a grift ecosystem (fueled by zero interest rate policy) masquerading as innovation and a load bearing component of the economy. We can do without unicorns, the world will be better off…

> (VC as an asset class has poor returns, VC funds make their fees throwing darts pretending to be thought leaders when it’s mostly luck, etc) It's like the world declaring someone World's Greatest Coin Flipper after and not before that person flips a coin 12 heads in a row.

https://longbets.org/362/

Re: The Unicorn Boom Is Over, and Startups Are Getting Desperate

#29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those did not emerge from these unicorns, except maybe OpenAI. (Tesla was already public prior to this. Smartphones didn't come from a VC-backed startup.)

>Smartphones didn't come from a VC-backed startup. This isn't entirely correct: both Palm and Apple (the creators of the smart phone) were originally venture-backed.

Apple did NOT create the smartphone. When the iPhone released in 2007 it was a feature phone- no app store and famously missing featured like copy and paste. Besides Palm who you have mentioned there was Symbian and Windows Mobile which each had third party after market apps available.

Re: The Unicorn Boom Is Over, and Startups Are Getting Desperate

#30
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that LLMs are not a benefit? Smartphones? Electric cars?

No, obviously not. Smartphones are a mixed blessing, I'm not sure we're better off with the little distraction machines, but both them and electric cars were things that could plausibly have developed more slowly, deliberately and thoughtfully over time without being "juiced" by distorted market incentives. They could have developed by companies simply evolving phones and cars over time.

They are quite useful as GPS/camera/general info lookup devices.

But virtue of having web browsers they also channel social media. Having social media come in through our phones does make it worse, but it was already bad even on laptops. (Writing this on a social media site using my phone is kind of funny).

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