221–230 of 331 posts
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So you mean, when something fit their narrative (here: government research is better) people forget about other attempts? And counter examples in similar domains (here: wifi) are also dismissed? Color me impressed!
Wifi is not a counter example. The underlying technology was invented at CSIRO, the Australian government research agency.
"If you want to start a company working on a better way to build homes, gene editing, artificial general intelligence, a new education system, or carbon sequestration, you may actually be able to get it funded, even if you don’t have a degree or much experience." I encourage anyone to give hard startups a shot, but there are tons of PhDs/Postdocs out there who would make amazing founders -- they should make the leap!…
I'm currently in the research phase for an idea using algae/other plants that sequester CO2 rapidly and continue to have questions, which lead to more questions. Thankfully there is a ton of research that has been done, which makes diving into the topic easy. But having someone to work with that has a PhD/postdoc in this area could help build the idea faster. How can I meet someone with a PhD/postdoc in a specific fi…
I find ycombinator to be acting completely ignorant of why and how it succeed. The whole notion that they can apply the techniques for an internet startup to hard things is bizarre. As the internet S curve comes to a close, new organizations should be built. Using ycombinator's name to launch unsuccessful startups is just asking to destroy Bs
So, oh wise one, what should we all be working on?
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It could present issues if you're speaking to a particularly disagreeable VC, but you're unlikely to convince that person anyway. They've decided they've got an axe to grind and they're going to use you as the grindstone. If you're in a situation where you're having to overcome objections in your pitch, most of the time you've already lost, and you should just move on. The goal for your pitch is to figure out how to…
Understood, thank you. I agree with your points. However, just to clarify, the basis for my original question is whether it is possible to predict VCs' "(dis)agreeableness", based on their domain expertise or lack thereof. I appreciate your opinion and look forward to hearing more thoughts from this community.
I find these 'Valley Koans' popularised in the last long while to be a little troublesome. Things like 0->1->n Do things that don't scale Andreesen Horowitz bit on 'The Good Ideas That Seem Bad' Paul G's essays. They all have nice little nuggets of wisdom, but what the almost always lack are good examples and concrete evidence. Funny that many HN comments are better researched than a lot of these 'Deep Thoughts'. Sin…
The biggest "deep problem"-type leaps in the past few decades have been due to innovations in technological infrastructure: the advent of the internet, GPS, and smartphone for example. All three innovations benefited from the positive externalities of government funding, as well as routine R&D and large corporations. The entities that collectively solved those hard problems only captured a fraction of the profits/ben…
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There are a few examples of government agencies which can make many parallel bets, on the understanding that most will fail but a few may pay off big. But, by "a few examples", I actually just mean DARPA. I'm sure there are others, not many though. Politics does not work well with "most of these projects failed". It's too easy of a target. Anything that failed, is an easy target for a congressman to take aim at as be…
> I actually just mean DARPA NASA is the obvious next example. They pay for a lot of esoteric stuff that once made they don't actually end up needing - but having paid the startup costs - end up contributing to other fields. I think FEMA also does similar things though at a much less parallel (but a higher volume). Most of the "regulate and promote an industry" (a dumb idea for structuring them but I digress) agencie…
It’s odd (read: motivated by self-interest) that he didn’t make any attempt to establish the failure rate of these startups and the distribution of outcomes for employees. Further, he didn’t even argue for a referendum on equity comp. He’s blatantly peddling the same broken model of “sell them your fugazzi so they can’t tell their talent is being plundered for (founder/investor) economic gain”. It’s downright insulti…
> Don’t fall for their “mission” nonsense. It’s a monstrous lie designed to keep funneling tremendous amounts of money to the people at the top. 100% For some reason, it is so easy to believe in it but the fun part will eventually come in a form of VC asking where is the money. "When someone says "I am not doing it for the money" he (she) is doing it only for the money." - Nassim Nicholas Taleb. My opinion is that it…
This is silly. Artists and creatives aren't doing it for the money. Social workers aren't doing it for the money. Teachers aren't doing it for th money ... etc. Passion => irrationality. Or different goals, like sense of purpose vs. money.
Something that really bugs me about this is the lack of examples where this succeeds. In my mind, a good one is Intel. To that end, how many microprocessor startups actually ended up succeeding at the same working on some fundamental and challenging things? Also, the thing about hard startups is there is a lot of luck involved. Counter to what the author is saying, you do need a degree or some level of measurable exp…
> Counter to what the author is saying, you do need a degree or some level of measurable expertise to start a hard startup, because not only do you need the expertise, you also need the credibility to get people to work with you and you need that solid team to get funding. Interestingly, this criterion causes Microsoft to be in the "Easy Startup" column. (Facebook too, but that seems more correct.) The Elizabeth Holm…