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Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

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111–120 of 144 posts

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#111
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I think that's the problem, that this is considered fun. Some people also like to measure their dicks . . .

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#112
post #69

I'm surprised at someone actually taking the other side of this bet as I thought Sam was _very_ conservative on his projections. 1) Any one of those companies (besides Pinterest IMO) could conceivably achieve a market valuation of $200B by Jan 1, 2020. 2) Again any one of those companies (besides Teespring IMO) could conceivably achieve a market valuation of $27B by Jan 1, 2020. 3) Easy win for Sam.

Seriously? As I write this, Microsoft, the largest purveyor of enterprise software in the world, is worth roughly $340 billion. Oracle? Less than $200 billion. Hell, Amazon, the company that Dropbox runs on isn't worth $200 billion. You honestly believe that any one of those companies, none of which has been around for more than ten years, could reach a market cap of $200B within 5 years? Either you are incredibly be…

Major difference between public market valuations vs private market valuations.

Particularly, liquidation preference & anti dilution.

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#113
post #34
post #12

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

Agreed; I would have greatly preferred he emailed me.

I think it's generated some interesting discussion. I'm sure the same occurred on the original thread, but I didn't read that.

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#114
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 aggregat…

(3) will be the clincher for this guy.

There are a lot of potential home runs in the current batch IMO - medical startups, etc. If someone like Stripe faces too much competition (as I'm certain Instacart will), I think (2) is his best option. Most of the rest of those names don't scream megacorp to me, but then I imagine Sam is privy to the interesting future plans of all of them.

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#115
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I'm asking in all sincerity - what does Dropbox have that Microsoft would want? Their OneDrive technology is "good enough" for the vast majority of users. Latest statistics I could find were that DropBox has 200,000,000 users and that 96% of them were free user accou…

Same reasons MS ended up buying Skype, despite having a near decade lead in tech (NetMeeting before MSN Messenger), 300M active users, etc. etc.? MS even had VoIP-to-PSTN in the 90s, albeit via a poor partnership with MCI. Same reasons MS ended up investing in FB, instead of turning Messenger (think: you've already got everyone and their friends using it!) into a good social network?

There are network effects in both of those. It's not the same.

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#116
post #44

I have no idea how this bet will come out but I was not pursuaded by Sam's argument because he did not address the root cause of the bubble. Put another way, he's sitting on the surface of a bubble and pointing out that there's not a bubble rising from that surface. He's saying that there's innovation and the innovation makes these companies more valuable-- on that we can all agree. Whether VC investments are correct…

> The bubble is not a startup funding bubble, it's a dollar bubble.

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#117
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.

The determination of "valuation" is pretty obnoxious. These preferred securities with liquidation preferences aren't even close to a "common equity" valuation. A VC round at $x valuation isn't remotely similar, economically, to a public co at $x valuation. This bet is more about whether the late stage VC bubble continues for 5 years than any notion of real value.

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#118
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

moving the goal posts? poor tactical decision, sam. you've just undermined your whole position.

before, with the open definition of VC, it expressed a high confidence in your bet.

now, by limiting the pool of potential bet takers, you are weakening your overall goal of maintaining public perception that there is no bubble.

the analogy is boxing. before, you were putting a huge bet that you were the best boxer in the world and you challenged any other boxer to challenge you so you could prove it. now that someone has, it's like saying that you are the best boxer in the world, and anyone can challenge you to prove it, except this challenger because reasons. it sounds like an excuse not to fight and makes you look scared.

lol.

it sounds like your confidence in your position concerning bubbles has been weakened, but you are trying to convince yourself it is as strong as ever by saying no REAL venture capitalist has taken your bet, so you must still be right.

it's cool though, I'm sure nobody will notice.

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#119
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

moving the goal posts? poor tactical decision, sam. you've just undermined your whole position. before, with the open definition of VC, it expressed a high confidence in your bet. now, by limiting the pool of potential bet takers, you are weakening your overall goal of maintaining public perception that there is no bubble. the analogy is boxing. before, you were putting a huge bet that you were the best boxer in the…

I think he means an additional bet.

Re: Tell Sam Altman: I will take your bet

#120
post #67
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…

There's an old company called CoolChips -- http://www.coolchips.com/ -- might want to have CoolChip keep their eyes open for C&D, unless they already know about each other
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