131–140 of 264 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and ̶G̶m̶a̶i̶l̶ email is such a successful example.
Imagine if the progenitors of email thought to require e-stamps, say a thousand emails for a buck. There's a parallel universe where 'Email co.' is a major tech player comparable to Google. Not sure it's a better universe, but bears consideration.
We’re at the end of a grand experiment of “you can take VC money and deliver a tech with new values, one that people want.”
The only people still claiming you can just haven’t run out of their last funding round… yet.
We have 20 years of evidence on what tech businesses can be built on the Internet that make money. It’s narrow and mostly can’t solve the problems that remain.
The escape hatch is always subscription revenue.
It’s true you can build a unique business on unique values for a unique community.
But it’s a long slog in the MicroSaaS world where anyone can & many will straight up copy you - forever.
X.com is probably the only & last experiment on whether switching to subscription rev is achievable at scale. Looks pretty clear so far that it’s not.
This might seem a negative outlook, but it could be quite positive if founders know & accept it.
The secret is out now that, mostly, founders make the same amount of money in the same amount of time whether they go the VC or bootstrapped route (when it’s a winning business).
There will always be opportunities for finance-backed cartel-busting mega runs.
But if you are a founder that cares about anything - anything - the route that gets you there is founder control, patience, and a customer base that pays.
> I figured I’d publish a short list of things Ello will never do: > ... > 2. Tolerate hate. Ello has many tools, some visible and others not, that help keep this network positive. Geez, it's hard to take anything said as authentic with a statement like that. How can you talk about things without "hate"? "I hate shoveling snow." "I hate terrorists." "I hate this political candidate." "I hate Taylor Swift music."
I was head of technology for another "make a better world" social network, and we approached fostering positivity as a practice of encouraging constructive interaction and discouraging _destructive_ interaction. In other words, being directly abusive toward others was obviously destructive and discouraged, but disagreement, even when quite strong, was great, as long as everyone involved maintained a level of basic re…
Slurs is a very specific behavior.
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So...that's a very permissive approach FWIW.
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Those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it, or whatever the saying is.
"History Does Not Repeat Itself, But It Rhymes" - possibly Theodor Reik [1] I expect Bluesky to make their own mistakes. [1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/01/12/history-rhymes/
Excellent, balanced post. We’re at the end of a grand experiment of “you can take VC money and deliver a tech with new values, one that people want.” The only people still claiming you can just haven’t run out of their last funding round… yet. We have 20 years of evidence on what tech businesses can be built on the Internet that make money. It’s narrow and mostly can’t solve the problems that remain. The escape hatch…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"History Does Not Repeat Itself, But It Rhymes" - possibly Theodor Reik [1] I expect Bluesky to make their own mistakes. [1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/01/12/history-rhymes/
This is the quote I believe: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" - George Santayana [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Santayana
I'm a recovering founder after winding down my startup a couple months ago. I've been thinking about getting back on the saddle and in service of that, meeting with folks who could be potential co-founders. One of the first ~5 questions I ask is whether they want to bootstrap or go down the VC route. Because they are very different paths, with different levels of pressure and mostly importantly, expectation. You _hav…
Which path do you want to go with in your next startup?
Excellent, balanced post. We’re at the end of a grand experiment of “you can take VC money and deliver a tech with new values, one that people want.” The only people still claiming you can just haven’t run out of their last funding round… yet. We have 20 years of evidence on what tech businesses can be built on the Internet that make money. It’s narrow and mostly can’t solve the problems that remain. The escape hatch…
This is an extreme position. More likely, we are seeing repricing occur. There are still worthy, venture backable ideas. Probably less of them than in the past.
Excellent, balanced post. We’re at the end of a grand experiment of “you can take VC money and deliver a tech with new values, one that people want.” The only people still claiming you can just haven’t run out of their last funding round… yet. We have 20 years of evidence on what tech businesses can be built on the Internet that make money. It’s narrow and mostly can’t solve the problems that remain. The escape hatch…
Well you can... just that there's no guarantee that the 'people who want' will also want to pay enough, on average, for it to be sustainable.
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Where in that document are you seeing that non P.B.C. corporations are required to maximize shareholder value?
This document only talks about PBCs, so it wouldn’t be in this document. I am using that phrase because that’s how people refer to fiduciary duty (and similar things) when speaking generally. Obviously there is a lot of complexity in the rules around corporate governance.
There are only two fiduciary duties in this context: the duty of loyalty and the duty of care. A director of a corporation owes no fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder value.