Exploiting Silicon Valley For Profit (and Maybe Fun) • Hacker News Board

Re: Exploiting Silicon Valley For Profit (and Maybe Fun)

#21

Post by ianterrell » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 7:15 PM UTC

bengl3rt wrote: post #10

vertr wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you serious? $6m sounds like more than enough to retire on at any point for most people.

If you want to live like a 20-something for the rest of your life, sure. Your cost structure changes as you get older and have things like houses, spouses, cars, and children.

$6MM invested with a 6% return provides a $360k pa lifestyle just living off the interest. That seems like quite enough for houses, spouses (well—maybe spouse; alimony could eat into that quite a bit), cars, and children.

Re: Exploiting Silicon Valley For Profit (and Maybe Fun)

#22

Post by dsrguru » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 7:15 PM UTC

maxko87 wrote: post #15

This is exactly why people consider the valley to be a huge bubble. This kind of "innovation" isn't sustainable at all.

But what makes it not sustainable? As long as there exist a few GooBooks, won't acquisitions continue to be sought?

Re: Exploiting Silicon Valley For Profit (and Maybe Fun)

#23

Post by seiji » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 7:15 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #4

So I liked this, like everything else Diego writes, but this graf doesn't ring true to me: Joe and Wayne work on building something they know GooBook could acquire without looking stupid. Something they might be able to do in-house, except their most talented engineers are desperately working on ways to extract more money out of ads, or to reduce the costs of their gargantuan infrastructure. Some are stationed in Ant…

I think the key point was diverted from. The employees aren't doing what they want anymore, so some stable "we can always get acquihired by google again when we fail" startup is attractive. As employee 3, they will walk away with a huge 0.5% of the exit while the founders walk away with 35% each.

how mouthy I was when I was 24

Welcome to The Bay Area: where self worth is measured by frat-like posturing and manipulation to level up at any cost.

Re: Exploiting Silicon Valley For Profit (and Maybe Fun)

#24

Post by maxko87 » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 7:17 PM UTC

dsrguru wrote: post #22

maxko87 wrote: post #15

This is exactly why people consider the valley to be a huge bubble. This kind of "innovation" isn't sustainable at all.

But what makes it not sustainable? As long as there exist a few GooBooks, won't acquisitions continue to be sought?

Yeah, but only until the GooBooks realize that they are just paying a huge premium for acquiring talent (and a worthless product).

Re: Exploiting Silicon Valley For Profit (and Maybe Fun)

#25

Post by gregholmberg » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 7:22 PM UTC

Google, Bing and HN Search all think that "Hacker Noise" is a neologism.

Re: Exploiting Silicon Valley For Profit (and Maybe Fun)

#26

Post by seiji » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 7:22 PM UTC

vertr wrote: post #13

seiji wrote: post #5

Disturbingly accurate. • Make a sufficiently shiny, yet imminently disposable product. • Hoard employees (each one bumps your valuation by ~$1.5 million), be loud, get acquired. • Kill product. (You never cared about it anyway -- it was just a vehicle for ego and attention. Now that you've got your $5 million, you don't need the validation of all those silly pawns/customers anymore.)

If new startups agreed that they wouldn't leave their users out to dry if they got acquired would you be more likely to trust them and use their service?

Getting a future promise from a startup CEO is as trustworthy as a politician's promise during election season.

The only sane approach is open data. Leave everything available for export so some other feature company can pick up where you left off.

You could venture into an insane realm where startups enter into a Startup Insurance™ league. When a company gets acquihired, instead of shutting down the product, a separate foundation runs the product (or figures out a way to open all the data for export).

Re: Exploiting Silicon Valley For Profit (and Maybe Fun)

#27

Post by jaggederest » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 7:22 PM UTC

ianterrell wrote: post #21

bengl3rt wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to live like a 20-something for the rest of your life, sure. Your cost structure changes as you get older and have things like houses, spouses, cars, and children.

$6MM invested with a 6% return provides a $360k pa lifestyle just living off the interest. That seems like quite enough for houses, spouses (well—maybe spouse; alimony could eat into that quite a bit), cars, and children.

Zero risk return is way below 6% right now. I'm not sure where you're going to find anything like that.

Berkshire Hathaway is willing to guarantee you a $205,000 annual income from that sum in an annuity, which is not a bad deal at all, but it's not 'never worry about money again', it's just a really nice salary, and would be substantially depleted in the case of any inflation at all.

Re: Exploiting Silicon Valley For Profit (and Maybe Fun)

#28

Post by dsrguru » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 7:23 PM UTC

maxko87 wrote: post #24

dsrguru wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what makes it not sustainable? As long as there exist a few GooBooks, won't acquisitions continue to be sought?

Yeah, but only until the GooBooks realize that they are just paying a huge premium for acquiring talent (and a worthless product).

That assumes that the product is worthless and that they have alternative ways of acquiring equally valuable talent. The author of this article asserts that neither of those is true. The opportunity cost of developing the product in house is often comparable to or greater than the cost of the acquisition, and the talent acquired is not only really skilled but also already familiar with GooBook's way of doing things since they worked there to begin with.

Re: Exploiting Silicon Valley For Profit (and Maybe Fun)

#29

Post by jaggederest » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 7:23 PM UTC

vertr wrote: post #13

seiji wrote: post #5

Disturbingly accurate. • Make a sufficiently shiny, yet imminently disposable product. • Hoard employees (each one bumps your valuation by ~$1.5 million), be loud, get acquired. • Kill product. (You never cared about it anyway -- it was just a vehicle for ego and attention. Now that you've got your $5 million, you don't need the validation of all those silly pawns/customers anymore.)

If new startups agreed that they wouldn't leave their users out to dry if they got acquired would you be more likely to trust them and use their service?

No, because how would they enforce that? If your company is acquired, all that goes out the window anyway.

Re: Exploiting Silicon Valley For Profit (and Maybe Fun)

#30

Post by tptacek » Thu, Jun 21, 2012, 7:23 PM UTC

seiji wrote: post #23

tptacek wrote: post #4

So I liked this, like everything else Diego writes, but this graf doesn't ring true to me: Joe and Wayne work on building something they know GooBook could acquire without looking stupid. Something they might be able to do in-house, except their most talented engineers are desperately working on ways to extract more money out of ads, or to reduce the costs of their gargantuan infrastructure. Some are stationed in Ant…

I think the key point was diverted from. The employees aren't doing what they want anymore, so some stable "we can always get acquihired by google again when we fail" startup is attractive. As employee 3, they will walk away with a huge 0.5% of the exit while the founders walk away with 35% each. how mouthy I was when I was 24 Welcome to The Bay Area: where self worth is measured by frat-like posturing and manipulati…

Ahhhhh there it is. Whew. I thought there was a risk that this was going to be a boring civil conversation.