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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

#51

Post by [deleted] »

hartator wrote: post #44
pryelluw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wasn’t 100% of the code directly written by Notch until 1-year before acquisition?

[deleted]

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

#52

Post by ngokevin »

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.

Stardew Valley?

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

#53

Post by sunrunner »

ngokevin wrote: post #52
pryelluw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Stardew Valley?

And to keep the thread going, Undertale (Toby Fox)?

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

#54

Post by ohdeargodno »

hartator wrote: post #44
pryelluw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wasn’t 100% of the code directly written by Notch until 1-year before acquisition?

No. Jeb was the main developer from 2011 onwards, the moment Minecraft left alpha. Unless there's a time hole I'm not aware of that swallowed 2011, 2012, 2013 and most of 2014, Notch is pretty much only responsible for the very base of the game.

In addition, code is not the only thing that makes a game. Artists, music, management, and many more.

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

#55

Post by OtherShrezzing »

hartator wrote: post #44
pryelluw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wasn’t 100% of the code directly written by Notch until 1-year before acquisition?

Mojang had 20+ employees way back in 2012, and they were outsourcing platform ports to other dev companies.

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

#56

Post by jacobr1 »

burkaman wrote: post #27
hardtke wrote: post #21

It's already almost happened with Plenty of Fish. Mostly a one person company, acquired for over $500M.

This seems like an exaggeration. It was a one person company for five years, then started expanding and sold for $575M seven years later. By that time it had ~75 employees.

That provides a good case study. A single person can bootstrap a company, along with outsourcing and a ton of grit. Moving the boundaries on what tasks are automatable, at difference cost points, and different levels of experience required to figure it out probably have all shifted in favor of individuals or small founder groups in recent years.

Maybe you can stay bootstrapped longer with less capital. That seems true.

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

#58

Post by swyx »

i think "one person unicorn" is good clickbait but is too egotistical/founder centric and unrealistic. it takes a team, everyone needs help, founding engineers/designers/ops/PMs/domain experts can all contribute a ton that a founder doesnt have.

my proposal for this term is "Tiny Teams": https://latent.space/p/tiny

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

#59

Post by danaris »

sunrunner wrote: post #53
ngokevin wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stardew Valley?

And to keep the thread going, Undertale (Toby Fox)?

Undertale not only credits Temmie Chang, it has characters based on her in the game.

(There may be others credited; Temmie's the only one I can think of off the top of my head.)

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

#60

Post by ohdeargodno »

ngokevin wrote: post #52
pryelluw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Stardew Valley?

If you're going to forget that his girlfriend worked two jobs for 5 years to even support him being able to do that, yeah, he was "alone". Just like trust fund startup bros make it "alone" (with the 500k their parents gave them).
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