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Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#81

Post by Disruptive_Dave »

lvs wrote: post #76
sama wrote: post #28

I sort of love that the person willing to take the other side of this is a Boston-area VC :) I accept subject to verification that you really qualify as a VC, and I can't find a website for Immaculate Conception Ventures. What investments have you made and how large is your fund? If terms from the blog post are acceptable I will enter into longbets.

This is exactly the sort of weak-minded chest-thumping I fully expect to see from venture capitalists. Way to live up to your stereotypes, both of you.

What's the point of having money and (mini) fame if you can't toss it around and have some innocent fun with it every now and then? Only one life on this planet...

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#82

Post by johnward »

diego wrote: post #14

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?

or OP just wants to donate $100k to charity

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#83

Post by snowwrestler »

adrianpike wrote: post #35
louisswiss wrote: post #17

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...

SpaceX alone makes me not want to bet against Sam on point #1.

SpaceX is dependent on government contracts for their business, which is risky. Government contracts could go away, or get reduced, for a bunch of different reasons--some of which have nothing to do with how good you are.

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#84

Post by chernevik »

foobarqux wrote: post #49
javabank wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$100k is going to a charity one way or another. That's a good thing no matter how you cut it.

It doesn't serve the main purpose of the bet which is to find someone with a strong enough conviction about the specific terms to risk $100k.

The bet is a punctuation point on a discussion. Sam is already taking risk on current valuations, another $100K here or there isn't going to move the needle. The real stakes are reputation for prognostication. And the point to me is getting VCs on the other side of the debate to put a public stake in the ground, and hopefully give their arguments for why.

So I don't find this taker particularly interesting. In the context of an industry wide debate, the opinion of someone who doesn't have an audience similar to Sam's doesn't really mean much. Not that they aren't smart, just that they aren't someone influencing the discussion. Which is what this is mostly about.

And to say "I take the bet" without any discussion of why really misses the whole point.

Of course Sam should take this bet. But I'd suggest that he amend his proposal: Find people with enough audience to change the discussion, who are talking about bubble valuations, and ask them specifically to put a stake in the ground on this.

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#85

Post by recondite »

xxcode wrote: post #55

1. Dropbox: NPV is less than 10B. Will probably get brought for 3-4B by bigco if bigco can transcend internal politics. Not sure who will buy them - most probably Microsoft under Ndella. 2. Palantir: I have some experience with working with Palantir FDEs who were marketed to BigCo as 'gift from god to solve all problems'. They were pretty useless. I think Palantir is basically shit. Wait and watch.

> I think Palantir is basically shit. Wait and watch.

That's a pretty bold statement.

I've worked with them as well, and definitely don't buy into the hype either. But when the latest financing round (~Jan 2015) has them valued at $15 billion, there must be something to it.

I don't know what kind of access their private investors have to the financials, but it's been reported they have 100s millions in revenue from USG alone selling their platform as enterprise software, which typically has a longer sales cycle but more "stickiness" once the customer has committed (i.e. they are less likely to purchase another platform no matter how bad the current one is). On top of that, the alternatives in this space just aren't very good, and sometimes hype and brand are all you need to make the sale.

That being said, I'm pretty skeptical of the valuations of all the tier 1 companies SamA mentioned, with maybe the exception of Pinterest, and think that category of the three has the most likelihood of losing him this bet.

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#88

Post by sama »

chernevik wrote: post #84
foobarqux wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't serve the main purpose of the bet which is to find someone with a strong enough conviction about the specific terms to risk $100k.

The bet is a punctuation point on a discussion. Sam is already taking risk on current valuations, another $100K here or there isn't going to move the needle. The real stakes are reputation for prognostication. And the point to me is getting VCs on the other side of the debate to put a public stake in the ground, and hopefully give their arguments for why. So I don't find this taker particularly interesting. In the co…

a fair point. i didn't define "VC" well enough.

if another VC from a top-tier fund with at least $500MM under management would like to take the bet, i will make the same bet once more.

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#89

Post by rudolf0 »

lvs wrote: post #76
sama wrote: post #28

I sort of love that the person willing to take the other side of this is a Boston-area VC :) I accept subject to verification that you really qualify as a VC, and I can't find a website for Immaculate Conception Ventures. What investments have you made and how large is your fund? If terms from the blog post are acceptable I will enter into longbets.

This is exactly the sort of weak-minded chest-thumping I fully expect to see from venture capitalists. Way to live up to your stereotypes, both of you.

At least it's going to charity.

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#90

Post by sama »

mdlm wrote: post #67
sama wrote: post #28

I sort of love that the person willing to take the other side of this is a Boston-area VC :) I accept subject to verification that you really qualify as a VC, and I can't find a website for Immaculate Conception Ventures. What investments have you made and how large is your fund? If terms from the blog post are acceptable I will enter into longbets.

Sam, Fund is $500K. Investments are listed below. Happy to provide LLC documents. Please enter into longbets. Michael Fitocracy https://www.fitocracy.com/ Empreware https://empreware.com/ Modify http://modifywatches.com/ Ecovent https://www.ecoventsystems.com/ Amino http://narvii.com/ seedchange https://www.seedchange.com/ ROCKI http://www.myrocki.com/ CoolChip http://coolchiptechnologies.com/ edTrips http://www.book…

can you send me your email address? i'm sama@
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