Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#11

Post by ltnately » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 6:11 PM UTC

hydrazine wrote: post #3

ddorian43 wrote: post #2

...what bet ?

http://blog.samaltman.com/bubble-talk https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9258798

Directly from link

To win, I have to be right on all three propositions.

1) The top 6 US companies at http://fortune.com/2015/01/22/the-age-of-unicorns/ (Uber, Palantir, Airbnb, Dropbox, Pinterest, and SpaceX) are currently worth just over $100B. I am leaving out Snapchat because I couldn’t get verification of its valuation. Proposition 1: On January 1st, 2020, these companies will be worth at least $200B in aggregate.

2) Stripe, Zenefits, Instacart, Mixpanel, Teespring, Optimizely, Coinbase, Docker, and Weebly are a selection of mid-stage YC companies currently worth less than $9B in aggregate. Proposition 2: On January 1st, 2020, they will be worth at least $27B in aggregate.

3) Proposition 3: The current YC Winter 2015 batch—currently worth something that rounds down to $0—will be worth at least $3B on Jan 1st, 2020.

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#12

Post by kmeves » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 6:12 PM UTC

I think it's pompous for both you and Sam Altman to be wasting our threads with these bets.

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#13

Post by iamcurious » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 6:12 PM UTC

I wonder how this works, is it necessary for Sam to acknowledge the bet? What happens if more than one person wants to take the same bet?

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#14

Post by diego » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 6:13 PM UTC

I'm curious which one of his propositions do you think has a higher chance of not happening, and why. #3 can be phrased as "there is at least one unicorn among these 114 companies" so betting against that is rolling dice. I imagine you're either bearish on 1 and/or 2, or are betting on a macroeconomic event that would bring all valuations down. Could you elaborate?

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#15

Post by ilyanep » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 6:14 PM UTC

kmeves wrote: post #12

I think it's pompous for both you and Sam Altman to be wasting our threads with these bets.

Are they more pompous or less pompous than the articles that show up every so often claiming that Tech is a bubble that's about to pop any moment now?

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#16

Post by hydrazine » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 6:14 PM UTC

iamcurious wrote: post #13

I wonder how this works, is it necessary for Sam to acknowledge the bet? What happens if more than one person wants to take the same bet?

The bet is only open to the first VC to publicly take it I believe.

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#17

Post by louisswiss » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 6:15 PM UTC

2) and 3) seem like a given, but looking at the companies in 1), I think Sam might have his work cut out for him...

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#18

Post by lettergram » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 6:15 PM UTC

Pretty confident Sam will win, given the current track record, and baring a complete market collapse.

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#19

Post by gautamnarula » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 6:15 PM UTC

Unrelated, but are you the same Michael de la Maza who wrote Rapid Chess Improvement?

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#20

Post by davidcgl » Thu, Mar 26, 2015, 6:15 PM UTC

Context: http://blog.samaltman.com/bubble-talk