Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 774 posts

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#111

Post by prohobo »

triceratops wrote: post #60
prohobo wrote: post #21

People said this was the "best time ever to get funding" for a startup. I disagree. In my view, it was the best time ever if you played a particular game and had the right connections. I pitched an idea to a VC, which I had a prototype for, looking for $100k. He liked it but wouldn't fund because I didn't have a solid business plan. Fair enough, I need to find a business partner. But then he told me something about h…

What's your project? $100k seems like an odd amount of money to ask for, to me. You can't staff up very much with that, but it seems like a lot of money to pay for AWS/hosting-type bills when you're just starting out ($10-30k should be more than enough). It only makes sense (again, to me) if what you really want is access to the VC and their network. But again, I don't know shit about VC and angel investing.

It was odd, but my envisioned development window was about 3-4 months (planning for 6) and I had potentially high upkeep after launch ($500-$1000pm for production ready servers). I could have found a co-founder or two and funded them for that period as well. So it would have been just enough + a buffer. At least in my mind. I realize you need more runway than to just get to launch and survive 2-3 months now.

The idea is a service that could open the black box of online video content. Right now you search for something and get the whole video as a result; if it's a 3 hour long podcast you're going to be doing a lot of seeking for specific information. I want to index and enable deep visualized search through video libraries and in videos. Basically splitting videos into linguistically salient topics, keywords and entities. That would allow you to analyze and visualize content (YouTube channels, videos, etc.) to find interesting information. Good for researchers and people looking for something specific, or people wanting to find new content (relationship graphs).

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#112

Post by blagie »

MAGZine wrote: post #93
cercatrova wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interestingly, I've heard many instances where interviewees asked startups about their revenues and the startups just wouldn't tell them, saying that it's growing, or some other vague nonsense. Even in the case of inquiring about the amount of equity one gets, many startups would not tell them the actual percentage of the company they'd get, instead opting to tell them the number of shares, without actually telling t…

It depends on the stage of the startup, but the books should probably be open to people who have made it to the offer stage until at least series b. if they're not, I'd be worried about the financials, the culture, or both. Refusing to disclose the number of outstanding shares is a huge red flag.

It's a huge red flag, and it's a hugely common red flag.

A startup was peeved I valued their equity at zero when they wouldn't share. I got strong hints my equity was worth at least $100k in extra annual salary, but they wouldn't budge on disclosing anything I could hold them accountable to. I think they were being honest, but I didn't take the job.

I did take a previous job like that, and when the company sold, we were all surprised management was honest. Management gave a used-car-salesman vibe, which was just wrong. I think with transparency, people would have worked much harder.

I don't have insights as to the reason for the extreme opacity.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#113

Post by samstave »

danielvaughn wrote: post #31
MAGZine wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the fact that you stopped to ask those questions makes me think that you're at minimum, an above average developer. caring about the business and its fundamentals is important beyond just slinging code.

I agree. I've had a couple of stints as a manager, now as a CTO for a small startup, and it's giving me so much insight into thinking about engineering from a business perspective. As an IC it's hard to get that birds eye view, but it's possible.

>As an IC it's hard to get that birds eye view, but it's possible.

Unless you actually have a consultancy which is based on seeing the ways in which you may plug a hole in the dyke...

And IC should ADD value to the org, not just slurp off of a need the company needs to fill.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#114

Post by api »

gonzo41 wrote: post #92
lumost wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Across every investment class there has been a trend of buyers needing to become more financially irresponsible in order to participate in the market. Need to buy a house? bid 20% more than asking, if you don't - someone else will.. in cash. Need to build a ride-hailing app? prepare to pay people to ride indefinitely. Need to own a growth stock? prepare to pay upwards of 100x multiple on revenue. All around, there ha…

This is also a central banking fail in so far that there's that much liquidity in the market that can't find a productive outlet. There's a lot of money, but also not enough concentrated in one spot to do really useful ventures like large infrastructure projects. So instead the money is distorting everything. Imagine if lending was less cheap for home owners but it was still cheap for governments or really large comp…

Central banks have one hammer really: interest rates. Everything is a nail.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#115

Post by georgeburdell »

rank0 wrote: post #57
deepnotderp wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s because the market calculates a high probability of an Intel implosion

They’ve got plenty of cash, and they’re still the strong leader in the server space. AMD is eating away at their consumer grade cpus I concede. I would be shocked if we had an intel “implosion” they have a sustainable and successful business model and there’s no world where we need fewer processors.

AMD is probably making more progress in server right now.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#116

Post by babyshake »

fullshark wrote: post #52
duckfruit wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A rate hike that that was widely telegraphed and has been anticipated for years, to boot!

And no evidence inflation is under control + future rates increases are anticipated as well. I'd love to get a flash poll of the finance industry and see how much people believe 1-8% interest rates are possible over the next 5 years. I bet a lot in the market think 3% interest rates are just not gonna happen.

You mean rates won't get that high? Or that they will be much higher?

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#117

Post by [deleted] »

triceratops wrote: post #60
prohobo wrote: post #21

People said this was the "best time ever to get funding" for a startup. I disagree. In my view, it was the best time ever if you played a particular game and had the right connections. I pitched an idea to a VC, which I had a prototype for, looking for $100k. He liked it but wouldn't fund because I didn't have a solid business plan. Fair enough, I need to find a business partner. But then he told me something about h…

What's your project? $100k seems like an odd amount of money to ask for, to me. You can't staff up very much with that, but it seems like a lot of money to pay for AWS/hosting-type bills when you're just starting out ($10-30k should be more than enough). It only makes sense (again, to me) if what you really want is access to the VC and their network. But again, I don't know shit about VC and angel investing.

[deleted]

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#118

Post by izzydata »

legitster wrote: post #75

This has been a long time coming. Back in the day, there was an inherent understanding that a stock price is supposed to reflect "the fundamentals" - present value of the company + future earnings. And of course there was some amount of speculation around future earnings, but for the most part companies at least tried to be profitable. But if you look at the share price of like, Tesla - it's completely insane. There…

Over a long enough time frame the stock market and even the whole economy behaves like a pyramid scheme as it is dependent on new generations to be more people than the previous one.

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#119

Post by dewlinedew2 »

immigrantheart wrote: post #59

I almost got offer from DoorDash, with obviously RSU as one of the compensation. Eventually didn't get the offer because they said I didn't pass leadership interview. Apparently I was interviewing at one level above I thought I was interviewing (the recruiter messed up). Anyway, I accepted an offer from a hedge fund, comparatively similar, but all cash. Now I feel that I am glad I accepted the hedge fund offer. I don…

Why not ask your friends at work?

Re: Tech bubbles are bursting all over the place

#120

Post by monktastic1 »

vkou wrote: post #78
lumost wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Across every investment class there has been a trend of buyers needing to become more financially irresponsible in order to participate in the market. Need to buy a house? bid 20% more than asking, if you don't - someone else will.. in cash. Need to build a ride-hailing app? prepare to pay people to ride indefinitely. Need to own a growth stock? prepare to pay upwards of 100x multiple on revenue. All around, there ha…

It's not irresponsible to bid 20% over asking. Asking is deliberately underpriced, because it is excellent advertising in a hot RE market. It's irresponsible to bid 20% over what the house is worth (which has nothing to do with asking price), just because you got emotionally attached to the house, and started a bidding war with another person emotionally attached to the house.

It bears repeating that there is no "what the house is worth" in the abstract. If you somehow know that other bidders will pay at most $X for it, then of course you'd never bid $X * 1.2 -- you'd bid $(X+1). And if lots of people are (or can be made) emotionally attached to a house and pay an apparently unreasonable amount, that is what it's "worth."
Post reply on HN