The Future of Web Startups • Hacker News Board

Re: The Future of Web Startups

#131

Post by davidw » Fri, Oct 05, 2007, 10:50 PM UTC

stuki wrote: post #129

davidw wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take a stab at this. I recently read one of Milton Friedman's books, and I liked it a lot. His pursuit of freedom is admirable, and something that I can understand. He even suggests that freedom is more important than using government power to attempt to stop racism, for instance by letting people choose not to hire black people (as an example). That got me to thinking though. While I'm attracted to the sentimen…

Just imagine the level of job candidates you could be selecting amongst if you were the only one hiring from a population as big as the black community. In any competitive field, employers are fairly limited in how 'racist' they can be in their hiring practices without setting themselves up for a fall.

Sure, but there are a lot of fields that aren't really that competitive (where you simply hire cheap laborers who basically work about the same), and where the pressure to conform may be higher than the pressure to find an employee that is 2% better than the next guy.

Re: The Future of Web Startups

#132

Post by gcheong » Fri, Oct 05, 2007, 11:42 PM UTC

jimbokun wrote: post #119

imgabe wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Japan or South Korea is at the forefront in terms of widespread availability of cheap high speed internet access. Probably their reputations as societies that are not very inviting to foreigners, and the difficulty of non-native speakers learning the language is going to dissuade a lot of people from moving there to start companies.

A lot of people study Japanese, think Japan is really cool, and would enjoy living there, I think. I think Korea is behind Japan in these trends but catching up. I do agree, though, that Japan does have a reputation of being not very inviting to foreigners that is to some degree deserved. I don't know as much about S. Korea in this regard. Japan could probably do much to solve some of their looming economic problems…

I lived in Japan for 6 years and found that it's quite an easy place to live in (and I lived in both a rural/industrial backwater as well as the Tokyo megapolis - Tokyo was much more fun). Yes, you do always feel like a foreigner but you also do not feel the pressure to conform to every norm like a typical Japanese person would. There are some signs that Japan is opening up more. For example, when I started working there you had to have your visa renewed every year, by the time I left it was possible to renew for 3 years.

Re: The Future of Web Startups

#133

Post by theirgrrreat » Sat, Oct 06, 2007, 6:52 AM UTC

I the article is pretty much spot on; especially the part about how big companies suck the life out of innovation. Having worked in both environments myself; I even worked at a startup that went from nothing, to an IPO and then being acquired by a big company. There aren't words in the English dictionary that can fully explain how the business and the people changed over the years.

Re: The Future of Web Startups

#134

Post by gaurav679 » Sat, Oct 06, 2007, 11:30 AM UTC

Hi paul,

I have enjoyed all ur essays and am fascinated by how insightful they are. I am graduating from college in december with a bachelors in electronics. Could u please recommend some of the books which have helped evolve ur thinking to this level.

Thanks

Gaurav

Re: The Future of Web Startups

#135

Post by anamax » Sat, Oct 06, 2007, 5:29 PM UTC

webmaven wrote: post #79

Hmm. I find the argument for unlimited concentration of startups in startup hubs somewhat unconvincing. If the number of startups founded goes up by an order of magnitude or two, then the need to move to Silicon Valley in order to be in a startup-rich environment goes down. Now, I do think that startups will still move, but I think that the number of hubs they can choose among to move to will be increasing as well. I…

It depends on how the new startups are distributed. If it's a lot more places with just one startup, no new hubs will be created. Doubling from one to two increases the odds that another startup will come along, but the odds don't get especially favorable until you hit a critial mass, and that mass probably depends on local conditions.

Lots of folks have tried to create startup hubs. What will be different this time?

Re: The Future of Web Startups

#136

Post by danw » Sat, Oct 06, 2007, 8:05 PM UTC

electric wrote: post #6

What Paul ignores is the fact that most people out of college are faced with seemingly insurmountable debt as a result of having to pay for an education - esp. in America (and to a lesser extent in Canada). This is one problem that will prevent startups from happening at such a rapid pace as he anticipates. In fact, most graduates want to find stable jobs to pay off their debt -- startups are not really on most gradu…

In the UK you graduate in June and have to start repaying your loan the following April as a percentage of your income if you earn more than GBP14,000/year. I've found that you can survive for GBP6,000/year so this shouldnt be an issue. No idea what the situation is like in the US however

Re: The Future of Web Startups

#137

Post by djasek » Sat, Oct 06, 2007, 8:08 PM UTC

I think there is a logical inconstancies in here. You say specific startup hubs are important, but specific colleges are not? Bullshit, either both are important or both are not. By your own arguments they will be performing the same service, building communities.

You say one goes to Silicon Valley to be in a community of startups, meet cofounders and talk with smart people. Then you say that in the future, in college, we will be more concerned with meeting cofounders and communing with smart people than we will be concerned with grades. Why won't yo want to go to the school with all the smartest like-minded people? Thats what Harvard is to business people. A community of like minded people that band together to help each other. The same will be created at the new breed of startup oriented tech schools. The admission standards might be a tiny bit different though.

Re: The Future of Web Startups

#138

Post by pg » Sat, Oct 06, 2007, 10:59 PM UTC

brianwc wrote: post #88

"At the moment, there is no one within big companies who gets in trouble when they buy a startup for $200 million that they could have bought earlier for $20 million. There should start to be someone who gets in trouble for that." I think it's right that startups will be acquired earlier and earlier, but that makes me wonder: might those earlier acquisitions (which sometimes decrease productivity to 1/13th what it wa…

I wondered if anyone would bring that up. I think another thing that will happen is that acquirers will figure out how not to ruin the startups they buy.

A company that bought a bunch of hot startups early on and didn't destroy their productivity would be a force to reckon with.

Re: The Future of Web Startups

#139

Post by pg » Sat, Oct 06, 2007, 11:09 PM UTC

webmaven wrote: post #79

Hmm. I find the argument for unlimited concentration of startups in startup hubs somewhat unconvincing. If the number of startups founded goes up by an order of magnitude or two, then the need to move to Silicon Valley in order to be in a startup-rich environment goes down. Now, I do think that startups will still move, but I think that the number of hubs they can choose among to move to will be increasing as well. I…

That is a valid objection. Though there are only 5 or 6 web startup hubs, out of the thousands of similar sized towns in the world. That number could increase by a factor of 10, and it would still be likely that you'd have to move.

And in any case I doubt the number would increase. The power of hubs is self-perpetuating. So no matter how many startups originated in St. Louis, there wouldn't be a lot there when a given new one started, because many of the previous ones would have already moved.

(Suppose it happened that 50% of the next generation of big movie stars were from St. Louis. That would not make St. Louis a rival to Hollywood.)

Also there's the empirical argument: I can't think of one industry in history whose growth made the established centers irrelevant.

Re: The Future of Web Startups

#140

Post by ivankirigin » Sun, Oct 07, 2007, 2:01 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #139

webmaven wrote: post #79

Hmm. I find the argument for unlimited concentration of startups in startup hubs somewhat unconvincing. If the number of startups founded goes up by an order of magnitude or two, then the need to move to Silicon Valley in order to be in a startup-rich environment goes down. Now, I do think that startups will still move, but I think that the number of hubs they can choose among to move to will be increasing as well. I…

That is a valid objection. Though there are only 5 or 6 web startup hubs, out of the thousands of similar sized towns in the world. That number could increase by a factor of 10, and it would still be likely that you'd have to move. And in any case I doubt the number would increase. The power of hubs is self-perpetuating. So no matter how many startups originated in St. Louis, there wouldn't be a lot there when a give…

At what point do VCs learn to believe in bolder ideas? There are VCs outside hubs, right?

If the trend if that many more small startups with bold ideas start to win, other VCs have to become more bold, and so the difference between, for example, the Valley with their aggressive VCs and other areas would diminish.

I do agree with your basic premise though.