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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

#191

Post by smnrchrds »

ajmurmann wrote: post #174
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.

That’s another thing I never got about Saudi’s investments. To me the obvious strategy with all the money would have been to not invest in empty skyscrapers or foreign investments, but pick two or three areas in which you massively bolster research and investment in an area like solar energy. Investment would be local and you try to attract all to talent in the field for both fundamental research as well as to fund c…

Minor nitpick, but UAE (United Arab Emirates) is not the same as Saudi Arabia. It is a neighbouring country.

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

#192

Post by tim333 »

wp381640 wrote: post #171
seem_2211 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

you're right that Google X is a money sink - one of the first things Ruth Porat did when she came in is take an axe to it as it had been a sore point with instutitional investors for a while "lets do Google X but with $100 billion" is a laughable business model

>Google X is a money sink

Dunno. I'm not quite sure of the figures but in 2015 they put in $3.5bn for the year. Against that Waymo which came out of X was recently valued at $105bn (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/27/waymo-valuation-cut-40percen...)

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

#193

Post by dragonwriter »

pmiller2 wrote: post #138
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you have $1M to invest you have a ton of options. When you have $100B to invest, your options are more limited.

I don’t think that’s true. When you have $100B and are hoping to earn a 10x return, your options are limited. $100B is only about 2.5 the size of Harvard University’s endowment, IIRC. You could manage that $100B like an oversized hedge fund and still make money, but probably not 10x returns.

> You could manage that $100B like an oversized hedge fund

The largest couple hedge funds are in the broad neighborhood of that size, so perhaps not too oversized.

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

#194

Post by nine_k »

pmiller2 wrote: post #169
james_s_tayler wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I didn’t say “humanity.” I said “human civilization.” I do think there’s hope for humanity, but I’m a lot more bearish about civilization.

If human civilization collapses and humans go back to hunter-gatherer subsistence, it means death to about 95-97% of humans.

Not precisely an extinction, but still not a lot of hope.

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

#195

Post by rovr138 »

xnyan wrote: post #119
wolco wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ability to find php developers is usually a reason to choose php. It's actually harder to find good js developers. Javascript frameworks work nicely with php acting as an api. An even better approach is a hybrid that allows you to use a framework like Vue/React or a libruary like jQuery but also allows you to use php to power your pages. This gives you the ability to have an spa per section. A common approach is to u…

Hey! New dev honestly trying to learn why PHP matters at all in 2019. Is PHP something I should stop learning JS for? In all my (very limited) experience, PHP does not solve any problem JavaScript can't, and JS is also far more in demand.

Honestly, it depends on the location and the industry you want to work in.

Having said that, PHP and JS aren’t the only ones. You will also find Java, Python, Ruby, C# for examples.

> PHP does not solve any problem JavaScript can’t

Any language will solve anything you can do in any other language.

> JS is also more in demand

Depends on industry, location and even teams at the company as well as the standards and requirements which could vary by project.

Having said all that, if you‘re learning JS, yes, you can find jobs that use it.

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

#196

Post by pmiller2 »

LanceH wrote: post #187
pmiller2 wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A hypothetical, completely clean energy source is objectively better than one that emits greenhouse gasses, on its face.

I'll counter with a hypothetical way to clean up greenhouse gases using fossil fuels. That is, until something can be put into production, it is not a superior product.

Ok, let’s add “renewable” to the equation. How do fossil fuels stack up to a clean, renewable source of energy?

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

#197

Post by Johnny555 »

qaq wrote: post #83

How the hell are they loosing money they take a big cut from a service that they invest 0 money into outside of marketing. If the app worked half decently their cs expenses would be low.

I think it's because instead of their app being a way to earn recurring revenue by being a go-between between dog walkers and dog owners, it's more of a way for dog-walkers to build up their client list, who no longer need Wag skimming off profit in the middle.

They claim that they'll charge walkers $1000 if they provide services to a Wag client outside of the service, but I'd be surprised if that's legally enforceable:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20854100

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

#198

Post by rawoke083600 »

xnyan wrote: post #119
wolco wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ability to find php developers is usually a reason to choose php. It's actually harder to find good js developers. Javascript frameworks work nicely with php acting as an api. An even better approach is a hybrid that allows you to use a framework like Vue/React or a libruary like jQuery but also allows you to use php to power your pages. This gives you the ability to have an spa per section. A common approach is to u…

Hey! New dev honestly trying to learn why PHP matters at all in 2019. Is PHP something I should stop learning JS for? In all my (very limited) experience, PHP does not solve any problem JavaScript can't, and JS is also far more in demand.

I do a lot of utility programming in it.. (prob cause I know it well)

* quick web scraping script (just with curl or file_get_contents) not the insane https-request-libs

* parsing some CSV files and generate SQL statements

* one-page website for monitoring/dashboard

* logging scripts (speed test hourly - working on article)

Even built a CLI xml feed processing system with it. Php7 is really fast and memory efficient. Not saying there aren't better or faster languages.

Guess its just a tool a reach for often, since I know it well and you can get far with a basic install without loading 1000 of npm/js packages. I only seldom need to use composer for my my* purposes.

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

#199

Post by smegger001 »

ajmurmann wrote: post #174
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.

That’s another thing I never got about Saudi’s investments. To me the obvious strategy with all the money would have been to not invest in empty skyscrapers or foreign investments, but pick two or three areas in which you massively bolster research and investment in an area like solar energy. Investment would be local and you try to attract all to talent in the field for both fundamental research as well as to fund c…

Thats because the Saudi wealth fund, is not for Saudi Arabia but House Saud.

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

#200

Post by adrianN »

ekianjo wrote: post #188
pmiller2 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There is always a non zero probability of mankind extinction but within hundreds of years it should be fairly, fairly low

Human civilization can die much easier than mankind. Civilizations have collapsed multiple times before. Back then the effects were localized because civilizations were localized. In today's globalized world the effects could be much more serious.
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