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

marcrand.com

61–70 of 158 posts

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

#61
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well actually....

No, Notch wasn't alone, even at the very beginning of Mojang: he founded the studio with Jakob Porsér and soon after Carl Manneh. It had 25 employees in 2012, and close to a hundred in 2014 by the time it got acquired. No venture is ever done alone. Not just because founders are, as the article say, unable to even handle their own emails, but because every single founder in the world lacks talent. We all do. You're n…

How much of Minecraft as people think of it in its early days had already been done by the time Mojang was formed? It's sort of a Game of Theseus type question, at what point does "Minecraft" as it was envisioned become "Minecraft the $2.5-billion acquisition by Microsoft".

I'm thinking about https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Java_Edition_pre-Classic as the Ur-Minecraft.

Edit: Added the missing words

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

#62

>Heather Cox Richardson ... could easily replace her two copy editors with Claude. I'd be surprised if she felt the same way.

yeah this is some insanely out of touch nonsense.. I have no idea who she is but the idea that any of the current crop of models could replace a copy editor is laughable. Just ask it how many times the letter b appears in blueberry.

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

#63

I would say that there has already been one, Notch and Minecraft. Though he did hire people and step down as dev lead, he was pretty solo and already on the 1 billion dollar trajectory.

This seems the closest you are going to get, but Mojang had dozens of employees at the time of the sale. One Reddit post claims there were 40 people there.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/18mcpme/does_any...

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

#64
I think its possible, but i just need some clarification, does outsourcing some of the work still count as a one person company? mobile games, High end fashion have good profit margin, so one person could generation 100s of million of revenue a year

also whatsapp had ~50 employees b4 meta acquired them for billions, imagine what one can do now with aws, ai agents etc erlang/elixir is the only language that made me believe that I could make services that 100s of millions of people could use with no worries and with all the iaas options out there, i wouldnt have to care about managing it and just throw money in the furnace for scale

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

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Notch wasn't alone, even at the very beginning of Mojang: he founded the studio with Jakob Porsér and soon after Carl Manneh. It had 25 employees in 2012, and close to a hundred in 2014 by the time it got acquired. No venture is ever done alone. Not just because founders are, as the article say, unable to even handle their own emails, but because every single founder in the world lacks talent. We all do. You're n…

How much of Minecraft as people think of it in its early days had already been done by the time Mojang was formed? It's sort of a Game of Theseus type question, at what point does "Minecraft" as it was envisioned become "Minecraft the $2.5-billion acquisition by Microsoft". I'm thinking about https://minecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Java_Edition_pre-Classic as the Ur-Minecraft. Edit: Added the missing words

> at what point does "Minecraft" as it was envisioned become "Minecraft the $2.5-billion acquisition by Microsoft".

When Minecraft gets acquired for 2.5 billion by Microsoft. Anything before that isn't a billion dollar endeavour. It could have failed miserably. It could have gone nowhere. 0.0.1a was straight up crap, and barely more interesting than Infiniminer. It also hadn't sold for a billion dollars worth of copies either, so...

A business is worth a billion dollars when it either has made it through sales, or someone pays you for that amount. VC funds don't even count, as the vast majority of billion dollar VC funded companies are money hemorraging holes.

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

#67

>Heather Cox Richardson ... could easily replace her two copy editors with Claude. I'd be surprised if she felt the same way.

The only purpose of this piece is the gratuitous sideslap at Richardson and her individual political stance. First Law of Modern Politics: nothing is about what it says it is about.

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

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Yes this still counts as "alone". Stop diminishing hard work and talent. A lot of parents give their kids 6 figure amounts, almost all of them don't do anything with it.

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

#70
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Yes this still counts as "alone". Stop diminishing hard work and talent. A lot of parents give their kids 6 figure amounts, almost all of them don't do anything with it.

>Couldn't ever do it alone without having someone (that loves him) sacrificing so much for him.

>Yes this counts as "alone"

I don't even know what to say to that, I guess we're just straight up redefining words to make yourself feel good?

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