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The Next Generation Bends Over

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Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#181

Post by fallentimes »

jasongullickson wrote: post #178
fallentimes wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but calling yourself a revolution is kind of like calling yourself insane or weird or unique or a celebrity; it's just disingenuous. If you have to call yourself something... It's out of context because I wasn't saying to be "selfish" and do nothing. I was saying they could work on whatever they wanted regardless of whether or not it's monetizable. There's no way to know that without context. >Many founders…

You're right about that fact that neither I nor the author of the article know everything (perhaps anything?) about the genuine motivation or inner-workings of Mint's owners and operators. In my case I was referring to startups/founders in general which I thought I made clear by the terms I chose in my response, however if this was ambiguous to you I apologize.

Well in that case apology accepted. And to your second remark I agree with you - I'm genuinely against built to flip companies. I just don't think Mint was one of them.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#182

Post by Psyonic »

philwelch wrote: post #140
mattm wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Many lottery winners are actually less happier a year after winning the lottery than before. Many also wish they had never won. Of course, this could be psychological due to them not having done anything to earn the money.

Most lottery winners piss away their winnings and end up where they started. It's kind of surprising how many people are absolute idiots at managing their money. My girlfriend's parents are broke again after blowing over $100,000 in a year on leather couches. Their manufactured home is still not paid off.

Bet you're hoping right now that the old saying "Like mother, like daughter" is only a saying...

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#183

Post by jk4930 »

mattm wrote: post #52
omgsean wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"lots of homeless people break free all the time and many of them are way happier than those receiving big exits for startups. That is not hyperbole." I'm sure you can find several homeless people who are happier than several people who made FU money in a short amount of time, but I'd be willing to bet that on average, people who started up a company and sold it for dump trucks full of cash are happier than homeless…

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Many lottery winners are actually less happier a year after winning the lottery than before. Many also wish they had never won. Of course, this could be psychological due to them not having done anything to earn the money.

Easy come, easy go.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#184

Post by philwelch »

Psyonic wrote: post #182
philwelch wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most lottery winners piss away their winnings and end up where they started. It's kind of surprising how many people are absolute idiots at managing their money. My girlfriend's parents are broke again after blowing over $100,000 in a year on leather couches. Their manufactured home is still not paid off.

Bet you're hoping right now that the old saying "Like mother, like daughter" is only a saying...

She's a lot more mad about it than I am.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#185

Post by andrewparker »

fallentimes wrote: post #6

Please. $170 million is "fuck you" money. Aaron and I'm guessing many of the top founders/executives made enough money to never ever have to work again. Fake revolutions are cute and all, but think of how awesome it would be to never ever have to work for the man again. They can do anything they want...for profit, not for profit, TBD (Y Combinator). This wasn't some BS talent acquisition; this was an absolute shitloa…

Aaron is now the lead on the Quicken Online product at Intuit. He'll have to work there for 2 years (or possibly 3 or 4) in fully vest in this exit and unlock his golden handcuffs. So, yes, he has FU money on paper. But, he's got another couple years of working for "the man" first.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#186

Post by davemc500hats »

[sorry, late to the party -- traveling & running several DC events last 24hrs; just jumping in]

as a Mint investor, friend of Aaron's, and someone familiar with most of the other Mint investors, i can only summarize my feelings on this by saying that Jason Fried is 100% wrong and pretty much completely full of shit on this topic.

if he'd bothered to even lift a finger to check a few sources on this issue, he would quickly have realized how WILDLY INACCURATE his conspiracy theory was.

in my opinion, blogging at length about a subject which he fully admits he knows little about -- and had not attempted to research -- is incredibly ignorant & irresponsible.

please forgive my anger, but when someone attacks my friends with stupid lies, i tend to get a little pissed off.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#187

Post by mountaineer »

tjogin wrote: post #73
fallentimes wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use yodlee.com (they power Mint's backend anyway). I've been a happy user for years. I agree with your second statement: to the uninformed observer (me and everyone else in this thread) something does seem off. Bank and credit card leads pay from $50-$200 per pop let alone the riches that mortgage leads bring in. I was in fits of laughter during the initial Mint acquisition HN thread ( http://news.ycombinator.co…

Mint's backend isn't the point, it certainly isn't what made Mint popular —— it's the frontend.

I disagree. Without adequate coverage of financial institutions, a nice frontend is useless. Users don't want to use a pfm that they can't add all their accounts to. I'd argue the backend (Yodlee) was very instrumental in making Mint easier to use and thus more popular. Competitor sites did not have as much coverage.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#188

Post by justin »

abalashov wrote: post #79
fallentimes wrote: post #6

Please. $170 million is "fuck you" money. Aaron and I'm guessing many of the top founders/executives made enough money to never ever have to work again. Fake revolutions are cute and all, but think of how awesome it would be to never ever have to work for the man again. They can do anything they want...for profit, not for profit, TBD (Y Combinator). This wasn't some BS talent acquisition; this was an absolute shitloa…

Agreed. I don't know that any argument about their relative merits as a company, a product or a competitor really trumps the "fuck you money" factor in this case. $170m is several metric, cubic butt-tons of money, even granted some fairly substantial fragmentation of equity among top executives and managers. That said, one does have to keep in mind how relative the concept of "fuck you money" really is. I, for exampl…

Here is a great post on taking money off the table by Mark Suster: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/09/02/should-founder...

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#189

Post by justin »

condor wrote: post #146
gruseom wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what PG's getting at is that you can't "look beyond" the fiduciary responsibility "mindset" without being fiduciarily irresponsible. Which is basically illegal.

Only if you CHOOSE to ACCEPT outside investors, and CHOOSE a board that doesn't have the same vision for the company as you do. I'm no lawyer, but I'm guessing if you own your own business, your fiduciary responsibility is to yourself.

Well, in this cast Mint did choose to raise outside investment.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#190

Post by revicon »

hyperbovine wrote: post #90
steamboiler wrote: post #32

From a comment posted on the blog: "You may not realize how fragile Mint was. All the hard part was being done by Yodlee.com; Mint simply built a thin layer over Yodlee, and collected affiliate fees. Mint was not built for the long haul, it was built to flip. (Check out the free yodlee.com to see that this is true.)" I think this point is important. Mint was adding value to an existing set of services rather than cre…

Wow, shocking. I can't believe Intuit would pay $170 million for something that has a single point of failure. Wonder how much those access rates are going up :-)

Mint.com will be migrated over to Intuit's inhouse platform, away from the service Mint.com is using now.
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