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Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

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Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#141

Post by pmiller2 »

perl4ever wrote: post #108
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure $50Bn could get us Fusion. Instead it got us slightly better taxis. We've only invested $1Bn in fusion (according to this article: https://www.greenbiz.com/article/fission-fusion-capital-flow... ). Physicists have been saying "we're close" for like 70 years. It took the Manhattan project the equivalent of $23Bn. If we had the same type of investment, we could have clean and (almost) free energy foreve…

"When the technology matures, according to Mowry, the wholesale price for fusion fuel is expected to be around $50-60 per megawatt-hour" I think it's telling that the most optimistic scenario they can come up with is "someday it might be competitive with fossil fuels if you consider the cost of fuel only ". The thing is, if fission is uncompetitive in the long run because of capital costs, can you, with a straight fa…

I can say that: fusion is objectively better than fossil fuels because it’s a sustainable source of energy that doesn’t destroy future generations’ prospects for a decent life. If you were to calculate the real costs of fossil fuels, including the effects on climate, I’m sure fusion comes out ahead. We don’t consider those costs typically, so we’re effectively externalizing them onto future generations.

Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#143

Post by the_watcher »

jacquesm wrote: post #36
petra wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about scaling a VC organization ? With hundreds of managers, A lot of institutional knowledge, helpful infrastructure for said company, and deep ties between companies ? Come to think of it, it has many similarities to Google X. But that's extremely hard to build.

You're describing Ycombinator.

Since when did YC have hundreds of managers?

Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#144

Post by [deleted] »

caseysoftware wrote: post #140
codesushi42 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point. Do you know anything about this industry? Biotech is not anything like your "traditional" tech companies, they operate in a completely different dynamic. It is not risky in the same way. It can take many years to realize that your proof of concept is a failure, and there's no "pivoting" like in the tech bro world. Are you prepared to realize that after 10 years and many millions of dollars…

I have a good friend who is a cancer researcher and they're 5 years in and think they might be able to commercialize something in another 3. Realistically, they're assuming it will be closer to five. While I have massive respect for the people with the insight, patience, and understanding to tackle biotech, I can't imagine spending 8-10 years for the hope that maybe you've done something useful.. and then figure out…

[deleted]

Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#145

Post by codesushi42 »

caseysoftware wrote: post #140
codesushi42 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point. Do you know anything about this industry? Biotech is not anything like your "traditional" tech companies, they operate in a completely different dynamic. It is not risky in the same way. It can take many years to realize that your proof of concept is a failure, and there's no "pivoting" like in the tech bro world. Are you prepared to realize that after 10 years and many millions of dollars…

I have a good friend who is a cancer researcher and they're 5 years in and think they might be able to commercialize something in another 3. Realistically, they're assuming it will be closer to five. While I have massive respect for the people with the insight, patience, and understanding to tackle biotech, I can't imagine spending 8-10 years for the hope that maybe you've done something useful.. and then figure out…

Exactly this. OP doesn't seem to get it. It takes a long time and "launching" is never certain. Thank you sir.

Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#146

Post by driverdan »

vageli wrote: post #134
driverdan wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I downvoted you because there is no "right" stack. All popular languages have good web frameworks. The right one to launch with is the one your team knows the best.

> I downvoted you because there is no "right" stack. All popular languages have good web frameworks. The right one to launch with is the one your team knows the best. Surely there are more appropriate stacks for specific problem domains? Like how using R outside of data analysis is probably weird, or writing your microcontroller code in nodejs is probably a bad idea. The law of the hammer exists, and if your tasks re…

You're correct but I was talking about language selection in the context of web development. There are, of course, specific domains that have language requirements.

Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#147

Post by tzs »

sschueller wrote: post #32
fantasticFerret wrote: post #18

I applied to this company right at the beginning of there expansion. The person that interviewed me said he had been sleeping on couches for the last year or so, (around 2017) and working insane hours. They gave me a php coding test to implement some kind of pub/sub. I finished it. Had no real way of submitting it other than emailing it to the interviewer as a zip. The moment the interviewer told me they worked with…

Are they at least using a php framework like symfony or is it all spagetti?

Not using a PHP framework for PHP does not imply that it must be all spaghetti. There are programmers who can write clear, structured, maintainable code in straight PHP.

Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#148

Post by seem_2211 »

petra wrote: post #31
pdq wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem when you have so much money to invest is that your customers need to actually invest it. It's much harder to invest $1-$5M at a time when you can just go back to the WeWork pool and drop $2B. It's like painting a wall mural using fine tipped brushes, rather than wide paint rollers or a paint gun. You get the job done so much faster, but your quality will suffer tremendously.

What about scaling a VC organization ? With hundreds of managers, A lot of institutional knowledge, helpful infrastructure for said company, and deep ties between companies ? Come to think of it, it has many similarities to Google X. But that's extremely hard to build.

There has been disappointingly little success from all of Google X's many investment dollars. I think with the hundreds of managers, institutional knowledge and helpful infrastructure comes a bureaucracy that kills a lot of what it creates.

Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#149

Post by seem_2211 »

rdiddly wrote: post #124

Messy is right. It's as if competently running a business people want to continue patronizing keeps slipping everybody's minds. No bootstrapped business thinks they can get away with this many gaffes in a row. Because on the very first screw-up, you lose some amount of money, and it's your own money, and it hurts, and you learn. In a startup funded like this, money is just the stuff you throw at stuff, and there's al…

My theory is that a lot of people read Zero to One, decided that spending more money than anyone else to build a monopoly is the best strategy (even if you work in an area with low barriers to energy), managed to find a VC fund with the same attitude (Softbank), and are now finding out that no amount of money helps you if you're selling dollar bills for $.50 over a series of years.

Re: Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

#150

Post by CalChris »

pdq wrote: post #27
loganfrederick wrote: post #16

What I don't get about the Vision Fund is how so many of its investments lack (pun intended) vision. Other than the ARM, Nvidia, and a few billion in biotech (about $3 billion[1]) investments, so much of the fund has gone into pretty "obvious" traditional startups. If I had a $100 billion fund, I wouldn't be swinging for these singles and doubles (which Uber and WeWork were by the time Softbank got involved, although…

The problem when you have so much money to invest is that your customers need to actually invest it. It's much harder to invest $1-$5M at a time when you can just go back to the WeWork pool and drop $2B. It's like painting a wall mural using fine tipped brushes, rather than wide paint rollers or a paint gun. You get the job done so much faster, but your quality will suffer tremendously.

$100B is not that much money. (Note to self: you just said $100B isn't that much money. Get head examined.) Bezos can aggressively handle it. Gates aggressively can handle it. Buffett can aggressively it. What is so special about the Vision Fund that it wants to put its money in the likes of Uber and WeWork? I would think knowledgable VCs would do their due diligence and avoid these companies.

Investing into Uber at $47B isn't vision.

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