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Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

marcrand.com

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Re: Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

#31

Post by mlhpdx »

crazygringo wrote: post #28
CafeRacer wrote: post #4

I'd predict a one person unicorn company potentionally possible, but this will be an inflated valuation company backed by someone, who is willing to prove a point. Not a company that delivers a great product and can be sustainable in the long run. Purely from the operational perspective, you need to handle support, you need to handle billing, to handle lawsuits, to handle infrastructure, to handle incidents... and st…

> but this will be an inflated valuation company backed by someone, who is willing to prove a point. People don't generally spend $1B to prove a point. They'll spend it on a network of users that is genuinely that valuable though. That's what Zuck did in dropping $1B on Insta. And it seems entirely possible that if Insta were built today, it could be done with a single person.

Oh wow, that's simply not true. Many investors have spent more than that to prove a point. Sometimes in one place, sometimes over many places and years.

Re: Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

#32

Post by wslh »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #18

One thing I want to point out about software is that its perpetually commoditized. Any piece of valuable software will get a free version after some amount of time. It happened to compilers, operating systems, and renderer. It's gradually happening to game engines. That's why the largest software companies are really just network effect monopolies. You only use it because other people use it or it relies on some sort…

This, and I'd add that if you're fortunate enough to have the resources to pursue an idea, use that time to your advantage. Don't rush: build it at your own pace. Time can be a real competitive edge compared to startups that are under pressure to sprint toward unicorn status. Network and build.

Re: Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

#33

Post by TrackerFF »

It never made much sense to me.

If one person can make a billion dollar company, it likely means that the product itself isn't too complex or big - unless said person has been stealth developing a product for years. But in this case, let us assume it is something founded recently, and aided with AI because, well...AI. That's the pitch right?

So what moat could such a company have? If you can be one man building a billion dollar company in a very short time, hundreds, probably thousands of competitors will spawn in an instant. And everyone will be racing to the bottom to acquire customers.

Ok, so maybe one of those - the most popular, will receive massive VC funding, so that they can simply outspend their competitors into market dominance. But still, that doesn't change the fundamentals: That the product is likely trivial enough to be solo-coded by a bunch of devs out there.

I think it is mostly AI founders hyping up their AI products. "Now you too can become a billionaire overnight, if you just completely integrate these AI tools into your workflow!"

My take is that as the big AI players advance, and the models become better, we'll get some sort of platform where we can just generate whatever tools we need on the spot. That will, to some extent, kill off the LLM wrapper business. In the end, why pay $10 a month for some subscription if you can get the same product directly from the company that makes the machinery. Right now this isn't the case, as they don't have any such tools - but, I'd guess that in a couple of years that is possible.

Re: Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

#34

Post by pryelluw »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #18

One thing I want to point out about software is that its perpetually commoditized. Any piece of valuable software will get a free version after some amount of time. It happened to compilers, operating systems, and renderer. It's gradually happening to game engines. That's why the largest software companies are really just network effect monopolies. You only use it because other people use it or it relies on some sort…

Minecraft? Not at all. Please stop rewriting history. Minecraft definitely had a small dev team but it wasn’t a single persons effort and wasn’t close to being one. You don’t create a world changing video game by yourself.

Re: Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

#36

Post by jader201 »

choilive wrote: post #12

Do athletes count?

What you're talking about is entertainers.

Athletes that make that kind of money are entertaining crowds.

So the same could be said for famous actors, musicians, etc.

But athletes that aren't also entertainers don't make that kind of money.

Re: Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

#37

Post by yumraj »

I think the biggest risk in having an actual one-person billion dollar company is the Bus Factor [0]

Billion dollar valuation depends on investors, investors will never pay that valuation due the inherent risk in a one-person company. They’ll force them to hire for redundancy.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bus_factor

Re: Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

#38

Post by zepolen »

pryelluw wrote: post #34
LarsDu88 wrote: post #18

One thing I want to point out about software is that its perpetually commoditized. Any piece of valuable software will get a free version after some amount of time. It happened to compilers, operating systems, and renderer. It's gradually happening to game engines. That's why the largest software companies are really just network effect monopolies. You only use it because other people use it or it relies on some sort…

Minecraft? Not at all. Please stop rewriting history. Minecraft definitely had a small dev team but it wasn’t a single persons effort and wasn’t close to being one. You don’t create a world changing video game by yourself.

Well actually....

Re: Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

#39

Post by pphysch »

LarsDu88 wrote: post #18

One thing I want to point out about software is that its perpetually commoditized. Any piece of valuable software will get a free version after some amount of time. It happened to compilers, operating systems, and renderer. It's gradually happening to game engines. That's why the largest software companies are really just network effect monopolies. You only use it because other people use it or it relies on some sort…

Building a global network requires not just building a successful product, but exporting that product to different geographic markets & cultures. Core product team might be 1 AI enabled developer, but what about all the other dimensions of a successful global enterprise?

Re: Let's get real about the one-person billion dollar company

#40

Post by nudgeOrnurture »

1 billion is not that much money.

my first question was: woe the hell is Heather Cox Richardson?

Ah, a historian. poor girl. doomed to never get the truth until ...

I had app and platform ideas in 2018 that would have brought quite a bit of a ruckus to the civil and CSR industry and a few game ideas that I still have not seen on the market but I also haven't talked about them so maybe that's the issue.

I have 2 or 3 practically finished screenplays on the level of movies that broke box office records . never talked about them either. neither was of any of it ever in any notes.

I babble a lot. just to bring the intentions of others to the surface.

I have ideas all over the place.

LIKE SO MANY OTHERS.

it's not gonna be a traditional unicorn.

there's gonna be an overarching narrative that's still missing, but that person won't focus on software. there's too many outs when people buy in, when people believe, when people just feel it, when they just know "this is what I want, this is what everyone (pop segment) wants".

if it's gonna be an established person like the one I mentioned above, it's gonna be some fake, whaled up BS. like bitcoin. like it happened so often in the past.

the wrong way to lure someone out who can actually make it. a one man one billion dollar company ...

come on, guys. that YT add was already a little .. much

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