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The Next Generation Bends Over

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Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#101

Post by jacquesm »

zackattack wrote: post #88
dcurtis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For me, 10 million dollars would be enough to satisfy all of my personal and family needs: house, vacation money, pay off close friends' debts, tuition, health insurance, etc. More money just means more good that can be done in the world for my larger human family. Also, it is likely that nothing was going terribly wrong. The exit was only small for the later-round investors, who also made a killing on their investme…

> pay off close friends' debts

Honorable, but basically flawed.

Your relationship with your friends will change because of something like that, it is very very nice of you to want to share the wealth, but someone that has a sense of honour themselves will either have to refuse your offer or they will accept and it will hurt their sense about themselves.

Should you ever find such wealth be very careful how you approach your friends with such plans. If someone in my circle of friends would make me an offer like that I'd see that as an intrusion, even if it was meant well. Just that you got into some money does not mean that you have the right to 'fix' others lives, they may get a lot more satisfaction out of fixing it themselves.

Giving money away is a very tricky thing to do if you do not wish to change your relationship with people.

But kudos for looking after others, I really appreciate that that would be one of the first things you'd think of.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#102

Post by JMiao »

azanar wrote: post #84
zackattack wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of your blog posts strike me as you rationalizing why you aren't a hugely profitable company.

Alright, so Jason's post was a bit more vitriolic than it needed to be, but I don't see how this contributes meaningfully to the conversation except as a cheap-shot to attempt to discredit Jason. You seem to assume that being a hugely profitable company is the right thing to be, and that anyone who isn't is bitter and requires a outlet to vent about how their failure isn't their own fault. What I've seen 37Signals bl…

thank you.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#103

Post by jacquesm »

Virax wrote: post #57
jasonfried wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 s…

Too much money is that money that you had left when you died that you held on to for a day that never came.

Money is a tool, not an end in and of itself. So, yes, you can have too much money.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#104

Post by kareemm »

wavesplash wrote: post #29

Jason you're projecting your ideology on others. That's a Fail smell. There's nothing wrong with a decent exit. The old guard doesn't have to die, and right now we're relying on the old guard since they're almost the only way startups can get liquidity. The Silicon Valley venture game isn't about making lifestyle businesses. It's about making good returns on investment. $170m was a respectable return for everyone inv…

Mint's definition of success isn't your definition of success.

Wait, didn't I read that somewhere?

Oh, right: http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/define_your_own_success.p...

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#105

Post by adw »

zacker wrote: post #45
adw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What community? Okay, I'm not in the Valley, but businesses are in business to do business - to make money for their shareholders. Arguing against that as a reasonable motivation is disingenuous. You can disagree with the business decision; that essentially amounts to "I think their expected value is >$170m and I'd take their risk profile". Fair enough. But if you're arguing it on any other basis than that, then you'…

Do you use Intuit software? Have you tried Mint? Everyone I've talked to that has a Mint account and has been forced to use Intuit software in the past is uniformly dismayed and confused by this acquisition. Banker math surely proves Aaron would have to show real hubris to ignore Intuit's offer, but founders rightly run startups, not bankers. Intuit is a $9B twenty five year old company. Mint could have given them a…

So you're arguing that Mint can make more by displacing Intuit than by getting bought, and that this is likely enough to offset the risk.

Fair enough, judgement call. But what justifies it? 'Banker math'.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#106

Post by gjm11 »

_cbsz wrote: post #67
baguasquirrel wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're the usual person that economics tries to model, then yes, money has diminish marginal utility that drops off quickly. The value of money drops off for everyone. If you ask me, 170 million doesn't buy a whole lot of votes in Congress. But this is irrelevant. What's valuable is the ability to create money, not the money itself. Investing is hard. You could probably ask pg about how hard it is. These guys had…

It sounds like you're saying that society does not have a diminishing marginal utility of money, and/or that they shouldn't have axed the golden investment opportunity for everyone (had they IPOed). Is that right?

The marginal utility of money is presumably diminishing for any entity. But the curve is stretched when you look at the whole of society (or any larger group) rather than an individual, for two reasons. 1. Having $1M isn't 1000 times as good as having $1K, but giving $1K to 1K people is about 1000 times as good as giving $1K to one person if all the people matter roughly equally. You're not moving so far along their utility curves. 2. There may be big projects that deliver lots of value at very high cost. (The fact that this is possible is basically a consequence of #1.)

I'm not sure this has very much to do with whether the Mint guys would have done better to keep going independently rather than taking the $170M, though.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#107

Post by stingraycharles »

jacquesm wrote: post #101
zackattack wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, 10 million dollars would be enough to satisfy all of my personal and family needs: house, vacation money, pay off close friends' debts, tuition, health insurance, etc. More money just means more good that can be done in the world for my larger human family. Also, it is likely that nothing was going terribly wrong. The exit was only small for the later-round investors, who also made a killing on their investme…

> pay off close friends' debts Honorable, but basically flawed. Your relationship with your friends will change because of something like that, it is very very nice of you to want to share the wealth, but someone that has a sense of honour themselves will either have to refuse your offer or they will accept and it will hurt their sense about themselves. Should you ever find such wealth be very careful how you approac…

Your relationship with your friends will change because of something like that, it is very very nice of you to want to share the wealth, but someone that has a sense of honour themselves will either have to refuse your offer or they will accept and it will hurt their sense about themselves.

That depends very much on the way you bring it. Indeed, if you offer to pay off their debts, of course it will hurt their ego.

But if you bring it like "here's 50 grand, i don't need it, i care about you, do with it what you want", well, most people will have a hard time rejecting it. Since they don't associate it with their debt, but rather as part of sharing in your success.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#108

Post by fallentimes »

markessien wrote: post #95
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…

I don't get it - why would you want to "not work"? What do you do then? If I want to sit on a beach and drink, I can do that right now - if I want to play games all day, I can also do that right now. Work is the game, if I stopped working, I'd be bored out of my mind.

You can obviously still work (as I mention), but the point is you can work on whatever you please for whoever you want (including yourself). And most importantly, it doesn't have to be monetizable - that's one of the biggest limiting factors out there.

And Mark, I know your situation, you're more fortunate than others :).

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#109

Post by _b8r0 »

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.

"Fuck You money" is not a myth. I know a fair few that have accepted FU money and built companies specifically to get FU money. Hell, I'd sell up for $170 million.

I'm shocked at how arrogant your comment comes across. Different strokes for different folks.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#110

Post by jacquesm »

stingraycharles wrote: post #107
jacquesm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pay off close friends' debts Honorable, but basically flawed. Your relationship with your friends will change because of something like that, it is very very nice of you to want to share the wealth, but someone that has a sense of honour themselves will either have to refuse your offer or they will accept and it will hurt their sense about themselves. Should you ever find such wealth be very careful how you approac…

Your relationship with your friends will change because of something like that, it is very very nice of you to want to share the wealth, but someone that has a sense of honour themselves will either have to refuse your offer or they will accept and it will hurt their sense about themselves. That depends very much on the way you bring it. Indeed, if you offer to pay off their debts, of course it will hurt their ego. B…

I'm not sure I'm making my point clearly enough, sharing in the success of someone else is not the same on a satisfaction level as achieving your own is.

By giving that money you are denying someone the chance of achieving that on their own and keeping parity with you. Especially if you say 'here's 50 grand, I don't need it', as though 50 grand should be peanuts to them too.

The asymmetry of the situation is what causes these problems.

The reverse also happens, plenty of people may assume that because you go back a long time they have an automatic right to whatever is yours. This is also not a healthy point of view.

There is nothing more poisonous to a friendship than to have one party suddenly come in to a lot of money. It takes a lot of tact (on both sides!) to get through that without getting peoples feelings hurt.

The best way to avoid this problem is to earn the money together with your friends.

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