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The Real Silicon Valley

jfornear.co

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Re: The Real Silicon Valley

#21

Post by Timothee »

fearless wrote: post #16
sukuriant wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nitpick: It's a loooooooooot less than 1%

Source? I've seen data pegging startup failure rates anywhere between 50-90%, but I've never seen a credible source claim that over 99% fail. Mathematically, no investor would be able to stay in business if 99% of their investments fail. I'm guessing failure rates for startups that have funding or bootstrap through revenue are closer to 75%.

The thing as always is how you define failure and success. Do all the founders of a startup that is considered a success make $10M? Of course not. In my opinion, that's where the "it's a lot less than 1%" might come from.

Re: The Real Silicon Valley

#22

Post by noname123 »

bsims wrote: post #19
noname123 wrote: post #4

Why be depressed? If you are young and a programmer making 100K at 25, party with your hipster friends and sock away 40K in savings every year. You'll end up with 200K by 30, not a cool billion dollar but with 6% muni-bonds, you suddenly have tax-free interest income of equivalent of $1.2 million at regular 1% CD rate. Work on interesting projects that you want to work on. Do some traveling. Go back to grad school fo…

It is hard to tell if this is a serious or sarcastic response. If you think Muni Bonds will stay at 6% for a lifetime, you're misinformed. 1) Government owned consumer debt is up nearly 5x in 5 years 2) Lately Muni Bonds have been swinging more than stocks themselves 3) Take Pimco Municipal Income Fund (NYSE: PMF) as an example. It's price has appreciated 7% over 10 years, TOTAL. Even with dividends you're looking at…

I'm not buying JNK or ETF tracking bond funds but underlying bonds. If you are buying the ETF, you are not getting the best yield but at average the 3% yield for lesser risk due to diversification - which is kinda BS given the systematic risk we've witnessed over the past 10 years. Pick muni for high yield and low default risk yourself.

Re: The Real Silicon Valley

#23

Post by bsims »

noname123 wrote: post #18
rmason wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where can you buy muni bonds that earn 6%? Most of the muni bonds yields I've found online are in the 3.5-4% range. That is unless you're talking about the city of Detroit (which is flirting with bankruptcy) that pays 7% plus and is riskier imho than doing a startup. http://blogs.marketwatch.com/fundmastery/2010/03/12/goldman-...

Found some Mass. bonds (because it's my home state, so tax-free for both federal and state) yielding 6.43% just now, with expiration date of 2029-05-01 and with credit rating of AA+ http://massachusetts.municipalbonds.com/bonds/issue/914440KJ... . Also can also buy some REITs with annual high-dividend yield of 17% such as AGNC or NLY. These are a bit riskier due to fluctuating principal out on the open equity market.…

Thanks for sharing a specific example. Could be an interesting investment. At the same time, you have to weigh out the other risks such as Mass. being one of the most in debt states in the country.

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/state_debt_rank

Re: The Real Silicon Valley

#24

Post by Wilduck »

tarr11 wrote: post #20

It'd be great if the author wrote about something specific . This article contains little detail about anything that actually happened.

Agreed. I read this:

> What Hacker News doesn't prepare you for, however, is when a competitor gets acquired for a billion dollars, work-life imbalance, and getting dumped by your World of Warcraft girlfriend.

and was pretty interested. It sounds like the start of two pretty interesting stories. Instead of actually telling these stories, however, the post descended into platitudes. I'm beginning to feel that I should be flagging posts that are as meatless as this one.

Re: The Real Silicon Valley

#25

Post by zainny »

neilk wrote: post #3
jenoneal wrote: post #2

Hey Jesse, great post though I'm sorry to hear about your startup. If you need a place to crash, I have a spare room for friends who are starting companies, folding companies or just passing through the Valley. Feel free to get in touch anytime. In the meantime, thought you might like this quote from a piece Michael Arrington wrote a while back: "Some of the richest people I know aren’t really entrepreneurs. They wor…

You hear that, loser marriage-having people?

The title of the article should really be "Are you a Broken Human Being?"

Re: The Real Silicon Valley

#26

Post by nodesocket »

Jesse,

I completely feel your pain. I moved up to San Francisco the previous June with the grand vision of building out my team, raising a round of investment and building my PaaS for hosting node.js apps (NodeSocket) to something really special. I left a cushy director level job in San Diego and left a core group of good friends as well. I simply packed up everything in my car and made the drive up. The first couple of months I stayed on friends couches and did AirBnB, essentially living out of my suitcase, and hacking all day and night.

The trough of sorrow is deep, with extreme peaks and valleys. One day I was talking with Sequoia Capital and first tier angel investors flying high and optimistic, the next day, they are all passing, and I realized that I have burned through my entire savings.

The thing about startups is they are born easy, but die a very long and drawn-out death. I recently just came to terms, and announced that NodeSocket is shutting down (http://blog.nodesocket.com/shutting-down) to pursue a new opportunity Commando.io (http://commando.io).

Keep with it, take some time off from startups and entrepreneurship. Doing a startup is the hardest thing most people will ever do.

Re: The Real Silicon Valley

#27

Post by leviathant »

noname123 wrote: post #4

Why be depressed? If you are young and a programmer making 100K at 25, party with your hipster friends and sock away 40K in savings every year. You'll end up with 200K by 30, not a cool billion dollar but with 6% muni-bonds, you suddenly have tax-free interest income of equivalent of $1.2 million at regular 1% CD rate. Work on interesting projects that you want to work on. Do some traveling. Go back to grad school fo…

If you think success will cure depression, your youthful inexperience is showing.

Re: The Real Silicon Valley

#29

Post by bokonist »

noname123 wrote: post #18
rmason wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where can you buy muni bonds that earn 6%? Most of the muni bonds yields I've found online are in the 3.5-4% range. That is unless you're talking about the city of Detroit (which is flirting with bankruptcy) that pays 7% plus and is riskier imho than doing a startup. http://blogs.marketwatch.com/fundmastery/2010/03/12/goldman-...

Found some Mass. bonds (because it's my home state, so tax-free for both federal and state) yielding 6.43% just now, with expiration date of 2029-05-01 and with credit rating of AA+ http://massachusetts.municipalbonds.com/bonds/issue/914440KJ... . Also can also buy some REITs with annual high-dividend yield of 17% such as AGNC or NLY. These are a bit riskier due to fluctuating principal out on the open equity market.…

Can you actually buy them at that price? Don't they get auctioned off, and so that the actual yield is lower? From reading that web page it looks like the effective yield was only 4-4.5%

Re: The Real Silicon Valley

#30

Post by sayemm »

fearless wrote: post #8
noname123 wrote: post #4

Why be depressed? If you are young and a programmer making 100K at 25, party with your hipster friends and sock away 40K in savings every year. You'll end up with 200K by 30, not a cool billion dollar but with 6% muni-bonds, you suddenly have tax-free interest income of equivalent of $1.2 million at regular 1% CD rate. Work on interesting projects that you want to work on. Do some traveling. Go back to grad school fo…

Everyone knows startups are not the optimal economically rational way to make money. But to an entrepreneur, living off 6% muni bond interest is profoundly uninteresting, and dare I say soul crushing. Repeat after me: If you think it's only about the money, you're missing the point. And even if it is all about the money, most 25 year olds would jump at a 1% chance to make $10 million over a $100% chance to make $200K…

Maybe the rational way to play the game then is to make that $200K, then stretch your reach and make $1M, and so on... until you've taken care of the money problem. Then that's when you're ready to start taking shots at the big opportunities, without being motivated by money or being held back by it.
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