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Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

jwz.org

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Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#151

Post by DanBC »

nostrademons wrote: post #116
larrys wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Almost every industry out there manages to make good profits without their employees having to give up their lives." Medicine and law being two exceptions.

Note the pattern: medicine, law, and engineering are 3 industries where the employees carry significant human capital with them (finance is another one, and i-bankers also give up their lives). I suspect the reason for this is because human capital makes the payoff for additional hours worked non-linear. One cashier working 80 hours a week should be just about as productive as two cashiers working 40 hours a week (a…

If I have the choice I want a rested doctor working less than 48 hours per week, even if that's "less productive" than the same doctor working 70 hour weeks.

Anyone working an 80 week is absolutely less productive than two people working 40 hour weeks, even taking "communication overhead" into account.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#152

Post by biafra »

9oliYQjP wrote: post #65
dschobel wrote: post #55

I love that this is the top story on HN. I only wish that PG got as much flack for his startup economics hype piece[1] and proposition to compress a lifetime's worth of work effort into four years. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

I've not seen eye to eye with PG on everything he has written. But this particular essay is one of my favourites of his. PG laid out an upper bound, which he later clarifies: "If $3 million a year seems high, remember that we're talking about the limit case: the case where you not only have zero leisure time but indeed work so hard that you endanger your health." And his upper limit for hours worked was 2x that of a…

Its only 11.43 hours a day if you work on weekends.

I am not advocating this!

I think if you are passionate about your work and work 8 hours a day (5 days a week) at full capacity you are productive enough. I can work more for one or two weeks if necessary (with the adrenalin boost stemming from a near by deadline) but not for much longer.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#153

Post by itmag »

kamaal wrote: post #148
itmag wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it as an experiment in thinking about leverage. If you minimized all the corporate office bullshit, leveraged your work to the max, AND worked hard on top of that, how much could you earn? The baseline becomes your work earnings WITH corp-bullshit, poor leverage, and lackluster effort, and then he extrapolates from that. Leverage analogy: think schwerpunkt in blitzkrieg. If you amass all your tanks on one secto…

I am not getting. You are going to end up being average in a large corporate. Your chances of succeeding in a start up are only 10%. There doesn't seem to be an easy way out of this career problem. There seems to be a problem with whatever you will do.

Is that 10% for "anyone who starts a startup" or is that 10% for me?

I imagine the success chance would go up quite a bit if one does basic things like being persistant and reading up on the wisdom of others.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#154

Post by martinkallstrom »

corin_ wrote: post #150
patio11 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you aren't putting in a lot of money that you might lose, which they did. VCs make money win or lose. Limited partners actually have capital risk. People know this, right?

Afraid not (afraid I don't know, not you're wrong) - how does a VC make money if a company they invested in goes bust and shuts down?

They make money on 1 out of 10 companies they invest in. If a company they invested in goes bust they make the money somewhere else.

EDIT: Sorry for this lame answer, I wasn't reading the question right. The real answer is that the people working with VC are managing someone else's money (the limited partners' money). They themselves get a salary which is a percentage of the amount of money the manage, only sometimes with a bonus correlating to how well they are doing their job.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#155

Post by mavelikara »

moonchrome wrote: post #95
ryannielsen wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all startups take VC. Not all startups that take VC require insane work schedules. Arrington's article is misleading and destructive – sleeping two hours a night isn't required for success and often leads to outcomes far removed from success. It's rather depressing that it's commonly believed all successful startups are driven by people with a single-minded focus who have no other lives. JWZ's post is, on the oth…

And I didn't say all startups take VC money, nor did I say that all startups require insane work schedules (that was addressing the VC will work you to the bone). But just because it's not always required, it's always a possibility that you will need to work like that in order to succeed, even in a big corporation things can go very wrong and you end up pulling a bad month (when launching a project in one big company…

> anyone entering should know what they are getting them selves in to.

Fair enough, but people hiring others to work for them for 80hrs/week should also expect some push back from some of those employees attached with this notion of "living a life before it is too late".

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#156

Post by draven »

pelemele wrote: post #63
someone13 wrote: post #6

Some people may not enjoy the green-on-black text, so this might be of use: http://www.readability.com/articles/dirqhjff

The color scheme is not random. He is probably an old timer like me remembering old green/black monochrome 14" monitors. http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/images/2011-04-24-i...

Use the phosphor screensaver (written by jwz) in the xscreensaver distribution together with Lynx/Elinks, as it can function as a terminal emulator: /usr/lib/xscreensaver/phosphor -scale 1 -program "lynx -dump http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/11/watch-a-vc-use-my-name-to-se... | less"

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#157

Post by jwr »

dschobel wrote: post #55

I love that this is the top story on HN. I only wish that PG got as much flack for his startup economics hype piece[1] and proposition to compress a lifetime's worth of work effort into four years. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

The difference is that PG actually did this stuff, while Arrington did not. PG is one of us, Arrington is not.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#158

Post by kamaal »

itmag wrote: post #153
kamaal wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not getting. You are going to end up being average in a large corporate. Your chances of succeeding in a start up are only 10%. There doesn't seem to be an easy way out of this career problem. There seems to be a problem with whatever you will do.

Is that 10% for "anyone who starts a startup" or is that 10% for me? I imagine the success chance would go up quite a bit if one does basic things like being persistant and reading up on the wisdom of others.

I think it applies to you as well. You are taking a risk(settling down on a lower monthly salary and time) which you had no real need to. If the start up flops you end up loosing money and time.

If this happens with 2 or 3 start ups you would have lost a lot of money and time.

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#159

Post by [deleted] »

sogrady wrote: post #79
1010100101 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Another one who should get some flack is Thiel. He may just be the worst, suggesting kids should forgo a university education and going so far as to actually debate the "issue" whether an education is "worth it". For some of these VC to make money, they have no need to see university degrees. But they have their own interests in mind. And, lo and behold, most of them have university degrees.

I did find it ironic that one of Thiel's major complaints about education was the exclusivity of universities like Harvard given that his solution was a program that admitted a mere 20 would-be entrepreneurs. jwz is right: be alert to the agendas of those who would influence you.

[deleted]

Re: Watch a VC use my name to sell a con

#160

Post by palish »

jwr wrote: post #157
dschobel wrote: post #55

I love that this is the top story on HN. I only wish that PG got as much flack for his startup economics hype piece[1] and proposition to compress a lifetime's worth of work effort into four years. [1] http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html

The difference is that PG actually did this stuff, while Arrington did not. PG is one of us, Arrington is not.

That's not true.

Paul worked very hard to grow Viaweb for several years, and eventually guided Viaweb to a lucrative exit via Yahoo.

Arrington worked very hard to grow TechCrunch for several years, and eventually guided it to a lucrative exit via AOL.

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