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Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

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21–30 of 208 posts

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#21
post #19

Not an idea, but I have to say I was blown away by the first meeting I was in with a company that said they were trying to exit for $1B. This pretty much summed up my reaction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1CEbl9cK3o&t=3m7s

Did they ever make it?

Still working on it. They were serious though. Probably end up short of that, but not by much.

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#22
post #18

I don't see any way for him to give an answer to this that wouldn't cause hundreds of people to apply to the next YC with the exact same idea (or with the same idea with tiny meaningless variations). Not sure if that would benefit anyone.

I'm pretty sure that hundreds of people already are applying with the exact same idea. PG's answer wouldn't make much difference.

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#24
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did they ever make it?

Still working on it. They were serious though. Probably end up short of that, but not by much.

Nice, I wan't to exit for 2 Billion, but will settle at 1.5 ;)

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#26
"We want to make our own rockets and spaceships from scratch. But that's just the beginning, to pave the way to settling Mars and making it affordable for middle-class customers to relocate to Mars." I imagine if Elon Musk had pitched SpaceX for YC, it would be a strong candidate for this.

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#27

Not an idea, but I have to say I was blown away by the first meeting I was in with a company that said they were trying to exit for $1B. This pretty much summed up my reaction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1CEbl9cK3o&t=3m7s

Wow, what industry? Healthcare? Telecom? Can't think of too many that could credibly claim a $1B exit.

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#28
post #27

Not an idea, but I have to say I was blown away by the first meeting I was in with a company that said they were trying to exit for $1B. This pretty much summed up my reaction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1CEbl9cK3o&t=3m7s

Wow, what industry? Healthcare? Telecom? Can't think of too many that could credibly claim a $1B exit.

Huh? I have been assuming that a large fraction of VC-funded startups try for exits of at least $1 billion. (The more rational ones know they will probably fail, but that does not prevent their sincerely aiming for that target.)

I am almost certain their investors want them to aim at least that high.

Are you sure you're not confusing billion and trillion?

ADDED. I'm not trying to appear bad-ass or hardcore (and in fact, I've never been a founder because I judge that I cannot afford that level of risk of being left with a severely suboptimal monetary reward for my efforts). I am honestly trying to understand VC-funded startups.

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#29
post #26

"We want to make our own rockets and spaceships from scratch. But that's just the beginning, to pave the way to settling Mars and making it affordable for middle-class customers to relocate to Mars." I imagine if Elon Musk had pitched SpaceX for YC, it would be a strong candidate for this.

You can't compare comic book superheroes to normal people. :)

Re: Ask PG: What Is The Most Frighteningly Ambitious Idea You Have Been Pitched On?

#30
Might not have ever pitched pg, since they're hardware and probably needed a bigger initial investment than YC does to make sense, but Blue River Technologies is probably the most ambitious thing I've heard of.

http://techcrunch.com/2012/09/10/blue-river-technology-raise...

The original product was a robot that zapped weeds with lasers, they switched to a superheated oil because it's cheap enough to be practical.

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