Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New RFS – Breakthrough Technologies

blog.samaltman.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 219 posts

Re: New RFS – Breakthrough Technologies

#21

Post by djb_hackernews »

Some ideas around transportation:

- smart pothole patches. Currently patches barely make the road any more driveable and uneven road surfaces result in billions in economic loss due to accidents, repairs, and traffic.

- drone machine equipment. Employ operators in the midwest in trailers while they control equipment all over the world. You'll get few accidents and utilize resources more efficiently. Put the operators in geographically advantageous locations and you can run the equipment 24/7.

- Volunteer traffic shaping network. I figure all you need is 15-20 volunteer drivers to effectively eliminate rush hour stop and go traffic on one side of a highway by throttling throughput. Create an app to help coordinate and reward them.

Re: New RFS – Breakthrough Technologies

#22

Post by mullingitover »

> Throughout history, when the cost of energy has come down a lot (for example, with the steam engine)

I'm going to have to review my physics textbook, but I could swear that steam engine consumes energy.

edit: Can't believe I'm getting downvoted. I thought this place was full of pedantic engineers, like me?

The steam engine turns energy into work. If anything, it probably increased the price of energy (at least temporarily, until the steam engine was put to work in the fossil fuels mining business).

Re: New RFS – Breakthrough Technologies

#23

Post by toomuchtodo »

rayiner wrote: post #19
kyro wrote: post #7

I feel like this is a big shift in focus for YC and for the industry if others follow suit. This will do a lot of good in changing the image of the typical startup, from who starts them to what their ambitions are, signaling to those in other industries that the valley isn't just about young code-slingers and iOS apps. I hope this encourages people in STEM with years of specialized domain experience to look at starti…

Someone needs to show that you can actually make money with something like this. The problem with these sorts of ventures is that besides being capital-intensive and risky, it can be quite hard to capture the economic benefits of the development in a way that justifies the investment. There's also the issue of whether Silicon Valley has the requisite infrastructure to facilitate these sorts of projects. If you want t…

> If you want to do projects in robotics, DARPA has both money to give you, deep connections with the universities developing the basic science, and a program manager to manage the project that typically has a PhD in the field.

The last head of DARPA now heads up Google X. SFBA has tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars available to it.

Capability isn't the question. Its the will that matters. As an investor, are you willing to sacrifice returns for the equivalent of the laser or the transistor?

Re: New RFS – Breakthrough Technologies

#24

Post by toomuchtodo »

staunch wrote: post #16
tlb wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many first-time entrepreneurs have raised more than $100M. They started with small amounts and showed great results at each stage.

Tesla would not exist if Elon Musk hadn't bet his personal fortune. He showed terrible results at first so all his investors gave up on him. Your average YC founder would not have been in a position to pony up $40M to do the Series E himself.

People usually don't realize that Tesla was days from insolvency back in 2008: http://www.autotrends.org/2008/11/17/avoiding-insolvency-tes...

Elon is an all-in kind of guy, but has his hands full. More Elons please.

Re: New RFS – Breakthrough Technologies

#25

Post by nakedrobot2 »

I hope someone is crazy enough for the Tall Tower project. It is the kind of project the Human Race needs to convince ourselves that we are still capable of getting Big Things done.

If you don't know about it already, it is a project jump-started in part by Neal Stephenson, to build a 15km tall tower.

http://hieroglyph.asu.edu/project/the-tall-tower/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE0n_5qPmRM

Re: New RFS – Breakthrough Technologies

#28

Post by rayiner »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #23
rayiner wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone needs to show that you can actually make money with something like this. The problem with these sorts of ventures is that besides being capital-intensive and risky, it can be quite hard to capture the economic benefits of the development in a way that justifies the investment. There's also the issue of whether Silicon Valley has the requisite infrastructure to facilitate these sorts of projects. If you want t…

> If you want to do projects in robotics, DARPA has both money to give you, deep connections with the universities developing the basic science, and a program manager to manage the project that typically has a PhD in the field. The last head of DARPA now heads up Google X. SFBA has tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars available to it. Capability isn't the question. Its the will that matters. As an investor,…

Well first, I think Google starting engineer salaries are closing in pretty quickly on what the head of DARPA makes, so there's that aspect of things. Second, SFBA does have a lot of money, but it's expertise is in investing that money into consumer products. It does not have an established track-record of doing fundamental R&D, and VC's don't have the kind of technical expertise (in the relevant areas) a place like DARPA does.

Now could they acquire that capability? Sure, with time and money you can buy whatever you want. But will comes into play there--why invest in that capability when you can get quicker returns in consumer products?

I do agree, though, that a big corporate R&D lab like at Google is better-positioned to tackle these sorts of projects than VC-funded start ups.

Re: New RFS – Breakthrough Technologies

#29

Post by lifeisstillgood »

"It used to be the case that governments funded a lot of development of breakthrough technologies. The bad news is that they have mostly stopped"

I have to plug the newest BBC In Our Time podcast on absolute zero - where basic science research (hey let's see how cold we can make this gas? Cool! Now this one?) provided refrigeration, superconductivity, superfluids, MRI scanners and more.

We cannot think VC can replace government long term funding but we can and should support VCs who are willing to go all in on long term funding and make it cool again. Politicians will go a long way on just standing next to billionaire investors for photoshoots.

Post reply on HN