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The Next Generation Bends Over

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Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#51

Post by condor »

pg wrote: post #3

A bit harsh, for something so speculative. It's a rare founder who has no offer he'd take. In fact, if you have shareholders or employees with options, and someone makes you an offer that's significantly above the expected value of your company, fiduciary responsibility requires you to take it. You can bend this requirement to some extent by overestimating your expected value, but there is always some number you'd ha…

I think what Jason's getting at is to look beyond the offer/fiduciary responsibility mindset and to think bigger, to be motivated by passion and have grander ambitions than looking at one's business as "company + product + customer = offer/price".

There are many successful business that truly don't have a number they'd HAVE to take. It's a choice, and that choice doesn't appear to be actively made by this generation's poster-child business leaders.

I do disagree with Jason, I think that there are a lot of unspoken young businsses, not in the spotlight, that do have the passion to take the baton from the previous generation; it's just that they don't seek out the attention, nor does the attention seek them out.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#52

Post by mattm »

omgsean wrote: post #41
fnid wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FU money isn't only a big lump sum of cash. It can also be a residual flow of payments for SaaS or royalties or dividends. As long as that money is coming in every month, you're fine and can do most anything you want as well. Flipping a company is just one way to say FU to the man. I've said FU to the man lots of times, even when all I had was some cash I had saved up from working really hard and long hours at a sala…

"lots of homeless people break free all the time and many of them are way happier than those receiving big exits for startups. That is not hyperbole." I'm sure you can find several homeless people who are happier than several people who made FU money in a short amount of time, but I'd be willing to bet that on average, people who started up a company and sold it for dump trucks full of cash are happier than homeless…

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Many lottery winners are actually less happier a year after winning the lottery than before. Many also wish they had never won.

Of course, this could be psychological due to them not having done anything to earn the money.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#53

Post by [deleted] »

fallentimes wrote: post #6

Please. $170 million is "fuck you" money. Aaron and I'm guessing many of the top founders/executives made enough money to never ever have to work again. Fake revolutions are cute and all, but think of how awesome it would be to never ever have to work for the man again. They can do anything they want...for profit, not for profit, TBD (Y Combinator). This wasn't some BS talent acquisition; this was an absolute shitloa…

[deleted]

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#54

Post by dcurtis »

fallentimes wrote: post #6

Please. $170 million is "fuck you" money. Aaron and I'm guessing many of the top founders/executives made enough money to never ever have to work again. Fake revolutions are cute and all, but think of how awesome it would be to never ever have to work for the man again. They can do anything they want...for profit, not for profit, TBD (Y Combinator). This wasn't some BS talent acquisition; this was an absolute shitloa…

It is sort of fuck you money, but honestly I'm more pissed off that a shitty company now owns one of my favorite webapps. Mint is now going to die.

I also think something must have been going terribly wrong. The exit was tiny considering the huge amount of money that was invested.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#55

Post by mathewgj »

steamboiler wrote: post #32

From a comment posted on the blog: "You may not realize how fragile Mint was. All the hard part was being done by Yodlee.com; Mint simply built a thin layer over Yodlee, and collected affiliate fees. Mint was not built for the long haul, it was built to flip. (Check out the free yodlee.com to see that this is true.)" I think this point is important. Mint was adding value to an existing set of services rather than cre…

giant plus one to this - mint was brilliant to make a warm and fuzzy credit card lead gen site and then parlay that into this size of sale.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#56

Post by fallentimes »

fnid wrote: post #35
fallentimes wrote: post #6

Please. $170 million is "fuck you" money. Aaron and I'm guessing many of the top founders/executives made enough money to never ever have to work again. Fake revolutions are cute and all, but think of how awesome it would be to never ever have to work for the man again. They can do anything they want...for profit, not for profit, TBD (Y Combinator). This wasn't some BS talent acquisition; this was an absolute shitloa…

FU money isn't only a big lump sum of cash. It can also be a residual flow of payments for SaaS or royalties or dividends. As long as that money is coming in every month, you're fine and can do most anything you want as well. Flipping a company is just one way to say FU to the man. I've said FU to the man lots of times, even when all I had was some cash I had saved up from working really hard and long hours at a sala…

>It can also be a residual flow of payments for SaaS or royalties or dividends.

None of those are guaranteed - especially compared to a lump sum.

>I've said FU to the man lots of times

They're saying it to him permanently. Almost all of your examples are temporary.

>Even with lots of money in the bank, you get bored. You end up wanting to go back into the system, to be part of a team, to do something productive.

No one said they would do nothing. The whole point is they can do whatever they want without worrying about it being monetizable.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#57

Post by Virax »

jasonfried wrote: post #14
fallentimes wrote: post #6

Please. $170 million is "fuck you" money. Aaron and I'm guessing many of the top founders/executives made enough money to never ever have to work again. Fake revolutions are cute and all, but think of how awesome it would be to never ever have to work for the man again. They can do anything they want...for profit, not for profit, TBD (Y Combinator). This wasn't some BS talent acquisition; this was an absolute shitloa…

"Fuck You money" is such a myth. More on this soon in another post.

Reminds me of something my uncle told me: "The rich are different from you and me: they have money...and you don't!"

Seriously though - you can never have too much money, but this doesn't change the fact that it is way better to have, say $10M in net worth vs. $100,000. Of course if you have $10M you're still going to want to be a billionaire, but now you can choose to either work hard to become a billionaire or do something entirely different. You're still going to have to find your place in the world---everyone deals with this---but now you have a huge amount of freedom you didn't have before.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#58

Post by fallentimes »

dcurtis wrote: post #54
fallentimes wrote: post #6

Please. $170 million is "fuck you" money. Aaron and I'm guessing many of the top founders/executives made enough money to never ever have to work again. Fake revolutions are cute and all, but think of how awesome it would be to never ever have to work for the man again. They can do anything they want...for profit, not for profit, TBD (Y Combinator). This wasn't some BS talent acquisition; this was an absolute shitloa…

It is sort of fuck you money, but honestly I'm more pissed off that a shitty company now owns one of my favorite webapps. Mint is now going to die. I also think something must have been going terribly wrong. The exit was tiny considering the huge amount of money that was invested.

Just use yodlee.com (they power Mint's backend anyway). I've been a happy user for years.

I agree with your second statement: to the uninformed observer (me and everyone else in this thread) something does seem off. Bank and credit card leads pay from $50-$200 per pop let alone the riches that mortgage leads bring in.

I was in fits of laughter during the initial Mint acquisition HN thread (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=821615) when people accused Mint of being unable to make money. To some, advertising and subscription payments are the only way to monetize.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#59

Post by heyitsnick »

mattm wrote: post #52
omgsean wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"lots of homeless people break free all the time and many of them are way happier than those receiving big exits for startups. That is not hyperbole." I'm sure you can find several homeless people who are happier than several people who made FU money in a short amount of time, but I'd be willing to bet that on average, people who started up a company and sold it for dump trucks full of cash are happier than homeless…

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Many lottery winners are actually less happier a year after winning the lottery than before. Many also wish they had never won. Of course, this could be psychological due to them not having done anything to earn the money.

Can you cite any studies that demonstrate this? This is often stated as fact, and I'm sure 'many' lottery winners are less happy, but I would still assume the vast majority would see massive gains in their quality of life and would report increase in their overall happiness.

I'd love to read up on any actual data gathered on the topic if you know of any.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#60

Post by fallentimes »

zackattack wrote: post #47
omgsean wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Facebook had to Facebook was started in some kid's dorm room, and I'm still not entirely clear on what they're selling.

Facebook sells highly targeted ad inventory. They may become the most effective advertising platform on the planet.

Not sure why you're being downvoted. I've read estimates that Facebook now shows 10% (!) of all U.S. display ad inventory on the internet.
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