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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

#151

Post by loganfrederick »

listenallyall wrote: post #129
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…

...another guy telling people how they OUGHT to spend their money. "I would have..." ::eyeroll:: It's an investment. Their top priority likely isn't eliminating diseases. Nor do most investors think it's wise to compete against Google.

I’d use a similar response to another commenter for this one as well: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21096376

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

#152

Post by tsm »

Barrin92 wrote: post #100

i know there is this meme about all software companies just bundling and unbundling things, but can we please stop putting tens of milllions into startups that are literally just: "App for Y that know allows you to work like before but without labour rights" and invest money into stuff that actually deserves to be called an invention. Idk cure cancer, flying cars, making infrastructure cheaper, something that actuall…

That requires actual domain expertise outside of being able to hack together a webapp, though. Learning what you need to know about the dog-walking industry takes something on the order of weeks. Learning about medicine, finance, etc. is actually difficult.

The startup I work for is in property insurance, and while the software we've written is cool, the business hasn't gone belly-up yet since we have good insurance analysts, actuaries, lawyers, salespeople, etcetera.

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

#153

Post by atrilumen »

Izkata wrote: post #96
maerF0x0 wrote: post #29

These on demand - fulfilled by gig contracting platforms can _only_ provide value if there has been a big technological change that undermines expertise in a job. Uber works because of google maps knowing a faster route than even the 20 year veteran tax driver. There hasn't been a revolutionary technology in dog walking, just people who need cash but dont know pets. There hasnt been a revolutionary technology in groc…

Just give it a few years: drone-based dog walking.

AR goggles for dogs, with remote-controlled training and control characters.

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

#154

Post by [deleted] »

kristopolous wrote: post #61
dang wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment comes closer to being substantive, which is often the case with the reactions people post to our requests not to post unsubstantive comments. Even so, while I understand your perception and like most people I intuitively feel like it must be true in many cases, I'm missing any sense of what specifically makes it true in this case, other than that "dog-walking" sounds trivial. A line of the form "Wag is a…

Tabloiding specific people in public forums is certainly bad form. I've run across people at wag and other x as a service companies, it's all the same, just some niche carving of fiverr or taskrabbit with a lot of hype and very little substance. Some like deliveroo out of the UK are genuinely competent but most are just doing theater

[deleted]

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

#155

Post by kortilla »

xnyan wrote: post #117
wolco wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A php stack is the right stack for 2017 or 2019 for a company like Wag. What would a javascript framework offer them? Their core product is connecting people and dogs. A php stack with laravel means they have a working website with authentication on day 1. What would a javascript framework offer them? Emailing tests or documents is very common during the interview process if the company is a startup. Offer them a git…

Maybe I'm dumb - Can anyone tell me why PHP vs JS for a "generic" web application? \In 2019 there are far far far more developers with real experience developing in Javascript vs PHP. There are obviously a lot of other factors in considering the base dev language, but unless you can make a strong case for PHP vs JS, I'm picking JS every time because in the generic case they both meet my needs but a lot more devs work…

There are far fewer devs with server-side JavaScript experience. When it comes to server-side for small startups, the syntax is irrelevant compared to the maturity of the ecosystem. Look how much of the web is still Wordpress.

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

#156

Post by james_s_tayler »

pmiller2 wrote: post #136
thecleaner wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A large part of this vision fund is basically Saudi oil money. These folks realize that oil doesn't have that much future if you think in terms of hundreds of years, so they are looking to diversify. Vision fund is not a tool to be on the cutting edge, its just a means to not be left behind. Hence they let VC market decide which horse is worth backing and then they swing their dollars around to see what happens.

Hundreds of years? There’s a reasonable probability _human civilization_ doesn’t have hundreds of years on this planet.

I've noticed that assumption is heavily baked in everywhere you look. I'll bet after the hundreds of thousands of years we have made it so far, humanity, in one form or another, will continue to persist.

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

#157

Post by kortilla »

RandallBrown wrote: post #109
swatcoder wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They should be able to say why they went with PHP over something else that was available at the time they started. Why, exactly? PHP, node, Ruby, Java, .NET, and Python are all capable tools with mature webapp frameworks. In terms of capabilities, the differences between them only matter for a small and rare set of projects. They could have decided on one of these platforms by rolling a die and it would have little…

Why? Because I wouldn't want to join a team that makes decisions for no reason. > Presumably, the actual criteria was likely familiarity and fluency for their tech founder or early developers. That would be a completely valid answer to the question. The fact that they didn't answer the question at all is the problem here, not that they chose PHP.

Or maybe they didn’t want to waste time on a candidate with such superficial focuses? Next time ask them why they chose to paint the wall dark blue instead of navy blue.

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

#158

Post by kortilla »

seem_2211 wrote: post #149
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.

Hey man, movie pass was on the cusp of upending the movie industry!

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

#159

Post by mypalmike »

pmiller2 wrote: post #141
perl4ever wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

It's hard to say a hypothetical energy source (commercially-viable fusion) is objectively better than one that actually exists.

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

#160

Post by fragmede »

CalChris wrote: post #150
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.

$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…

You're right, it isn't vision. Valuations are largely bullshit, so "at $47B" is finance trickery.
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