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Hanging up my spurs

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Re: Hanging up my spurs

#121

Post by s73ver »

jbigelow76 wrote: post #107
jacquesm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, Larry Page and Sergey Brin got rich of making an incredible contribution to the world of knowledge organization and then continued to build on that. That's why Google is still around so many years later, and that's why they still own a good chunk of it. What is the last time you went to 'broadcast.com'? That deal shouldn't have happened because there was no substance to what was sold (ok, fault of the buyer, a ce…

Ok, so you're saying there is no substance to "radio on the internet" (I assume that since nothing weird or shady jumped out at me from the wiki article). So by that same token there should be be no substance to "TV on the internet", a la Netflix but I don't think anyone would try and make that case. Regardless of net contribution to the good of society, one deal is one deal. Cuban wouldn't have gotten rich if he did…

"Ok, so you're saying there is no substance to "radio on the internet""

That's not what they said. They said that there was no substance to Broadcast.com specifically.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#122

Post by socrates1998 »

tommynicholas wrote: post #114
padobson wrote: post #63

tldr - compulsive gambler who won the Twitter lottery vows to quit playing the lottery and move on to making podcasts and buying political influence

Chris won the Twitter lottery.... and the Uber lottery.... and the Instagram lottery..... and a bunch of other lotteries. Had arguably the best run of seed investing in history.

Is there proof he got in early on all these and made money?

I think it's been pretty established he got in super early on Twitter and made a ton of money, but I don't know about the Uber or Instagram.

I sound like a hater, but just because you "invested in" those companies doesn't mean you made money or were a smart investor.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#123

Post by hsod »

exclusiv wrote: post #116
sremani wrote: post #87

A very nice write up ruined by very partisan ramblings in the end. There is nothing wrong in believing in liberal cause, but to consider the other side as devil incarnate is a bit disturbing.

It's very disturbing but it's a leftist thing, not a liberal thing. Based on what he writes, he's a leftist. How productive can any conversation be when you have such a backwards and unfair starting point that the other side is evil? Leftists also assume minorities can't do certain things and that only they can save them because they are the enlightened ones. Leftists are far removed from being progressive and tolera…

The problem with your worldview is it leaves you totally unprepared for the scenario when the other side genuinely elects an evil or destructive person. It presumes there's always a rough moral equality between the two sides.

We have historical examples of evil and destructive regimes being legitimately elected. It's not impossible.

Sacca claims we are observing another example, right now, in America.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#124

Post by brilliantcode »

mahyarm wrote: post #90
brilliantcode wrote: post #57

So smart money is leaving startup/VC/SV...it'd be interesting to see who's been swimming naked all these years when the bubble bursts this Fall edit: oooh, definitely a touchy subject around here ;)

I thought the bubble was going to 'burst' in 2012. I also thought the Vancouver RE market was going to burst 10 years ago too in 2007. And it still hasn't burst, it just flatlined and then kept on going. Bubble prediction is a difficult game to play.

Fair enough. But this year is the perfect recipe. Trump, China, EU etc....

Read Antifragile book

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#125

Post by brentm »

melbourne7 wrote: post #83
canistr wrote: post #29

Has anyone else noticed that a bunch of people leaving the investing scene/liquidizing in the past year are part of the same circle? Specifically Sacca, Tim Ferriss, and Richard Branson? I'm certain there might be more people.

Well, perhaps. But Sacca is great at it. Ferriss pulled out because he's no good at it. (Easier to be a charlatan in books rather than investing).

Eh that seems a bit harsh. Wasn't Ferris in Uber's pre-seed or seed round? Plus he mentions Facebook, Shopify, Twitter and Alibaba on his AngelList. I'm pretty sure if you're one guy making $25-$100k bets and hit early on any one of those it is more than enough for you to be considered pretty good.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#126

Post by rconti »

angersock wrote: post #56

> As a rich white guy, being an activist/loudmouth in the #resistance often means taking up political positions that are against my own apparent self-interest. These oppressive zealots in the White House... > You mean beyond fighting a despotic regime... > I assure you, that’s not going to happen. Nevertheless, I am spending a great deal of time meeting with all of the beautifully spontaneous and decentralized organi…

Yes, at the margins, EVERYTHING a President does will hurt people, cost lives, etc. One can only hope that, on balance, their decisions are beneficial rather than negative. In that sense, you can look for (and find!) outrage or great success in any person with such a weighty job.

For that reason, I don't disagree that there's a lot wrong at the local level, and in many ways any action you could personally take would be better taken at such a level where you can create real impact.

That said, I'm not sure it's at all melodramatic when you consider the tone that the "leader of the free world" sets in terms of what's socially acceptable, how to treat others, and so on. And I don't mean in the sense of "oh, anti-Semitic attacks are up 13.5%!" -- there is SO much that can be fudged in compiling this kind of data. I mean more in the sense of "suddenly it's acceptable to be an unrepentant outright liar every hour of the day, and people will not just look past it, but literally disbelieve their own ears."

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#127

Post by ghaff »

sbierwagen wrote: post #112
ryanSrich wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These types of comments are always hilarious. Really? You think we've topped out on 1bn dollar companies in the year 2017? AI, Self Driving Cars, Improvements to Flying, SPACE!? You honestly think there's nothing left to invest in?

Useful AI and SAE 5 cars are multiple years away, and this leg of the business cycle is already 9 years old. As for the other two categories, only SpaceX is relevant in the spacelaunch world, and I don't think they're going public anytime soon. I don't know of any startups that I would say have a decent chance in commercial aviation.

"Useful AI" is vague enough that you can probably make any sort of statement about it. If you mean things like an Echo that can take "understand" and take actions on the level of a slightly dull personal assistant, you're probably right. (Which is at least correlated with SAE 5.)

Of course, there's all sorts of machine learning and related AI-ish things that are potentially useful in the interim.

Fully agree on the other points.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#128

Post by rhizome »

ryanSrich wrote: post #79
jpeg_hero wrote: post #5

This looks like a really easy marker that we've topped out on unicorn/big secondary market. When the smart big players start to take their chips off the table you can be sure this thing has peaked.

These types of comments are always hilarious. Really? You think we've topped out on 1bn dollar companies in the year 2017? AI, Self Driving Cars, Improvements to Flying, SPACE!? You honestly think there's nothing left to invest in?

I'll believe AI is good for something other than YouTube recommending Top 40 music for me to play next, when Google News stops showing pictures of unrelated celebrities next to political stories (e.g.).

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#129

Post by rhizome »

ghaff wrote: post #127
sbierwagen wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Useful AI and SAE 5 cars are multiple years away, and this leg of the business cycle is already 9 years old. As for the other two categories, only SpaceX is relevant in the spacelaunch world, and I don't think they're going public anytime soon. I don't know of any startups that I would say have a decent chance in commercial aviation.

"Useful AI" is vague enough that you can probably make any sort of statement about it. If you mean things like an Echo that can take "understand" and take actions on the level of a slightly dull personal assistant, you're probably right. (Which is at least correlated with SAE 5.) Of course, there's all sorts of machine learning and related AI-ish things that are potentially useful in the interim. Fully agree on the o…

The Amazon Echo having a 60-item case statement is not how "AI" is typically promoted.

Re: Hanging up my spurs

#130

Post by ghaff »

rhizome wrote: post #129
ghaff wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Useful AI" is vague enough that you can probably make any sort of statement about it. If you mean things like an Echo that can take "understand" and take actions on the level of a slightly dull personal assistant, you're probably right. (Which is at least correlated with SAE 5.) Of course, there's all sorts of machine learning and related AI-ish things that are potentially useful in the interim. Fully agree on the o…

The Amazon Echo having a 60-item case statement is not how "AI" is typically promoted.

You may have misunderstood my point. I'm saying that being able to interact with a digital assistant (I only used Echo as an example) the way I would with a human admin and have it take appropriate actions is many years away. It would be an interesting application for many of us, but it's not close.
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