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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

#121

Post by trhway »

notahacker wrote: post #94
trhway wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yep, one-person billion dollar company is less than 10x of per-employee valuation of NVDA, OpenAI, PLTR, etc. - a bunch of companies where per-employee valuation has crossed $100M. That is tens of thousands of people, not just one individual.

The $1b per employee large corporation is much easier to imagine though, per the point of the OP - it's hard to imagine someone generating so much revenue that their company is valued at $1b not choosing to hire at least one person to do stuff they haven't got time for or don't like doing.

Well, I don’t see much difference between $1B and $100M, and none of these companies would hire me “to do stuff they haven't got time for or don't like doing.“

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

#122

Post by xeromal »

jader201 wrote: post #36
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.

I'd posit Messi isn't an entertainer unless you consider him playing soccer entertaining by using his athleticism as an athelete.

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

#123

Post by jcgrillo »

verzali wrote: post #115
bluGill wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The models can replace humans. They can't do it well, but it might be good enough. If you are tiny and just barely making money at all in your job you should evaluate if this cost cutting is good enough or not. i'm getting the idea though the whoever she is - she is making good amount of money: she should demand a higher bar that I don't think llm's can meet today just because she can afford it and the risk that it m…

She runs one of the biggest newsletters on Substack. Probably earning a millon dollars a month from it. But that's pretty far off a billion. AI editors also aren't great - they help if you can't afford anything else, but as soon as you make enough to hire a real person you probably should do that.

I'm not much of a writer myself, but what little I do know about writing suggests that a "not very good" editor is actually much worse than none at all. That is, arguing with an LLM about my writing is probably going to make my writing worse, not better.

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

#124

Post by dlivingston »

ohdeargodno wrote: post #70
bko wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You're making some meta-point about "aloneness" where it's disqualified if they have some pre-existing threshold of wealth or connections. I disagree that's disqualifying, especially because you can play that game all the way to the bottom.

Q: was only a single person instrumental to the creation of (product/service)?

A: if yes, then yes; if not, then no. "Yes, but... [help from family / existing wealth / ...]". Irrelevant to me.

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

#125

Post by pradn »

paxys wrote: post #88

Meta "bought" Alex Wang for $14.3B. Ilya Sutskever's "business" (really his skillset/personal brand) was worth $1B+ the minute he stepped away from OpenAI. Joe Rogan could fire all his staff and there would still be companies lining up around the block to buy his podcast for $1B+. There are many such examples of a person having something or being something that is worth a lot to someone else, to the tune of billions.…

I'm sure we're already there with musicians as well. If you take Taylor Swift's annual revenue and multiply it by 5-10, you'll easily cross a billion. But she does require tons of staff for the stadium shows that provide the bulk of the revenue, etc. Not literally one person, but it's a company with a bus factor of one.

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

#126

Post by throwawaylaptop »

ohdeargodno wrote: post #60
ngokevin wrote: post #52

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).

That's just semantics. I worked as a car salesman, saved over $250k, and quit to become a self taught saas guy and my php jquery mess now supports me.

Did I do it alone? You'd argue that no, I had my old bosses help or something because he gave me the funds to learn and work on it?

If he got it from parents instead would that change anything? What about getting it from his own savings?

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

#127

Post by bluGill »

jldugger wrote: post #15

> a revenue multiple of 2-4x typical for newsletters values her business at ~$50 million. And this is kind of the problem: how do you value a company held by a single person? There's no open market for shares in this company. And worse, I feel like there's a proof of non-existence: Either: 1. The business is so simple any idiot with a billion dollars can buy and run it. I'm sure such businesses exist but not at the b…

Most likely the person and the business are the same. It is possible (unlikely but work with me...) people might buy subscriptions to 'blugill's insights' but I am the brand you can buy the business from me but if I don't continue to write the content everyone will go elsewhere. As such the billion dollars is because that is my real (lifetime?) income from it. similear for my novel, you would probably worry if I let someone else finish it. (Though wheel of time proves it can work)

Now there are plenty of newsletters that are not about the auther and many of them do well-

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

#129

Post by jibolash »

ivape wrote: post #72
jibolash wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So every individual becomes a company? The natural tendency of capitalism is to create bigger companies for "scale". Even if it was possible, what exactly would be the benefit of one person companies?

If you can’t imagine the benefits then don’t worry about it. The jungle ain’t for everybody.

Okay Tarzan

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

#130

Post by throwawaylaptop »

Every company trades on the labor of someone else somewhere via expenses. It could be electricity, or cement, or LLM access, or employees.

In the end every company is a one person company, because usually on person is in charge of what the company is doing.

So I guess we're asking, will there be huge companies where money is spent on everything but other humans?

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