- Venture Capital pouring millions into untried businesses. - The crazy valuations. - The recent complains of VCs that "Entrepreneurs aren't working on enough big ideas". It all actually makes sense now. It's all in the name of Big Risk = Big Reward style ventures. Especially after defining a "startup" as a company meant to grow rapidly and to massive proportions. Not necessarily a tech business. Not an online store…
Startup = Growth
111–120 of 220 posts
Re: Startup = Growth
#112- Venture Capital pouring millions into untried businesses. - The crazy valuations. - The recent complains of VCs that "Entrepreneurs aren't working on enough big ideas". It all actually makes sense now. It's all in the name of Big Risk = Big Reward style ventures. Especially after defining a "startup" as a company meant to grow rapidly and to massive proportions. Not necessarily a tech business. Not an online store…
I don't want anything to do with this life style.
I posted this in another reply but I'll post it again because I think it's so relevant.
DHH talking about startups
Re: Startup = Growth
#113Am I the only one who think pg's view points appear to be getting more and more extreme, in some sense rather biased compared to his previous essays? Zynga is definitely all about growth. It is fiercely focused on metrics, fiercely focused on growth. But as someone from game industry, we cannot agree that this model is THE model that gives the world and everyone value. If the game industry worked like the way pg desc…
And PG even explicitly said that not all companies should be startups. You are reading things into this essay that aren't there.
Re: Startup = Growth
#114Am I the only one who think pg's view points appear to be getting more and more extreme, in some sense rather biased compared to his previous essays? Zynga is definitely all about growth. It is fiercely focused on metrics, fiercely focused on growth. But as someone from game industry, we cannot agree that this model is THE model that gives the world and everyone value. If the game industry worked like the way pg desc…
I'm sure even Blizzard and Steam teams are very focused on growth as a metric. It's just that unlike Zynga, they believe that creating fun mechanics in their games and improving on them through patches make for a great way to move their needle. Therein lies the difference. I guess the focus shouldn't just be growth at all cost, but sustainable growth.
Re: Startup = Growth
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think he's trying to make any moral judgements. He's just making observations about what actually works within the context of our capitalist system. Capitalism has produced this period of explosive growth centered around technology in the USA and Silicon Valley in particular. And if you are trying to participate in that ecosystem, then you should understand what he says (IMO). There wasn't any part of the ess…
You made great points, but I disagree about the morality part. Wall Street had also produced explosive growth in our economy. It was also a ingenious system with participation of lots of hackers and talents. But I think most will agree now, that when Wall Street operates without considering its own morality, it is by itself, immoral. In other words, I believe the essay's lack of reflection on the morality issue, whic…
My opinion is that corporations are essentially "amoral" -- not immoral. Morality simply doesn't enter into any substantive decision. Google's founders often invoke the self-interest argument: "people don't have to trust us to be moral, because if we acted against our users, they would leave us, and we wouldn't make any money". This is what I call an amoral argument -- with no negative connotation to "amoral". PG almost invoked a version of this in footnote 8.
You might think that being amoral is equivalent to being immoral, but morality isn't as well-formed a concept as people think it is. Namely, the most common use of the concept of immorality is to label "stuff I don't like". I mean, what's wrong with millions of people playing Zynga games all day? Would people be curing cancer if they weren't playing Zynga games?
Another issue is that a person isn't moral or immoral; it's well known that the same person will act moral or immoral according to their environment. Paul Graham even said that about HN (in terms of trollish behavior). (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error)
In the case of Wall St, there's no possibility of it "considering its own morality". No amount of goading or convincing will make an ounce of difference. The only way I can think of is for voters to make it clear to elected officials that they won't tolerate the status quo, but so far that hasn't happened. Even after the 2009 crash.
(And btw I didn't make any assertion about morality in my original message, other than to say "I somewhat agree" about Zynga, so not sure what you are disagreeing with.)
Re: Startup = Growth
#116- Venture Capital pouring millions into untried businesses. - The crazy valuations. - The recent complains of VCs that "Entrepreneurs aren't working on enough big ideas". It all actually makes sense now. It's all in the name of Big Risk = Big Reward style ventures. Especially after defining a "startup" as a company meant to grow rapidly and to massive proportions. Not necessarily a tech business. Not an online store…
It pretty much describes with different terms what pg here described as a "startup". I think startups have always had that definition (at least since the late 90s) but folks came along and started calling every little thing they own (i.e. their blog, non-profit, life-style business) a startup.
Obviously, a lot of that had to do with how the tech media also entertained that liberal definition of a startup -- and everyone and their mom started jumping on that wagon because it was considered cool.
I think articles like this should be a must-read for anyone wanting to get in the game, seriously.
Re: Startup = Growth
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think he's trying to make any moral judgements. He's just making observations about what actually works within the context of our capitalist system. Capitalism has produced this period of explosive growth centered around technology in the USA and Silicon Valley in particular. And if you are trying to participate in that ecosystem, then you should understand what he says (IMO). There wasn't any part of the ess…
You made great points, but I disagree about the morality part. Wall Street had also produced explosive growth in our economy. It was also a ingenious system with participation of lots of hackers and talents. But I think most will agree now, that when Wall Street operates without considering its own morality, it is by itself, immoral. In other words, I believe the essay's lack of reflection on the morality issue, whic…
Silicon Valley = makers
Wall Street = takers (sometimes enablers or rewarders for the makers)
Re: Startup = Growth
#118Am I the only one who think pg's view points appear to be getting more and more extreme, in some sense rather biased compared to his previous essays? Zynga is definitely all about growth. It is fiercely focused on metrics, fiercely focused on growth. But as someone from game industry, we cannot agree that this model is THE model that gives the world and everyone value. If the game industry worked like the way pg desc…
This is not true. Minecraft is the best example; it had an insane growth rate both in percent and absolute numbers, exactly what PG is talking about. The other games you mention are also good examples of starups in high-growth terms. And when talking about markets, most people who enjoy Diablo, Baldur's Gate and Minecraft _don't_ enjoy free-to-play games, since these games have no element of art or story to them. And…
Minecraft was one guy (probably) enjoying himself while putting together something creative. It then exploded. Did he really target 10% growth per week?
Diablo, BG, etc. were all calculated bets by people with lots of experience in the industry. They weren't building a business model, a new organization, etc. They were doing "projects" they felt would promise high returns. That's it.
Re: Startup = Growth
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is a tough sell to young entrepreneurs. Its hard for them to understand that buy giving away some portion now will make their equity more valuable when they are able to scale to mass market.
It is, but I am being sold. Until this past week or so I've been highly skeptical of VC funding and much more inclined towards bootstrapping. I love that DHH video someone else posted in this thread. I think it's silly to focus on users and vanity metrics if you don't have a clear business model (even if it's not implemented immediately). But this essay makes an amazing case for why outside funding is helpful, even c…