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We Have Learned Nothing

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Re: We Have Learned Nothing

#31

Post by dminik »

apsurd wrote: post #30
dminik wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be defeatist, but it is correct. Seriously, how do you even realistically approach taking on ASML. They spent decades and billions of (investment) dollars to do insane moonshot research and it paid off. But it also closed off the door behind them. Entire countries (Russia, China, ...) have been trying to reproduce it. They have not succeeded yet.

why does one need to take on ASML? I had to look it up, semiconductors. ASML market cap is ~500B. Meta market cap is ~1.5T. i'm no facebook fan but it was started by a dude in a dorm room. So I think saying "well those times are gone now" is defeatist. (fwiw i personally have no interest in building a trillion dollar company from my basement, just talking philosophy here)

If we're going to be like that, we should go for Nvidia. Their market cap is currently ~4T.

I can see that going very well.

Re: We Have Learned Nothing

#32

Post by gzread »

btilly wrote: post #25
pinkmuffinere wrote: post #8

If you believe that an achievement involves skill, and that people can hone than skill, then I think you should believe the people who have done it know on average good advice about how to do it. You don't have to accept the premise, you may believe that many people simply got lucky, and no skill is involved. I think most of us do believe that skill is involved in starting a business, so let's just assume it is. I th…

Point missed. All of the reasons why you say this article should be dismissed, are irrelevant to the article's actual argument. Here is the key principle. Suppose that your odds of startup success are dominated by competition with other would-be startup founders. For example you compete for funding, good ideas, competent employees, and markets. If so, then the odds of success are set by the dynamics of that competiti…

In which case if you are a successful startup founder who wants to be even more successful, you should give bad advice to your future competitors

Re: We Have Learned Nothing

#34

Post by gzread »

RGamma wrote: post #18
pwatsonwailes wrote: post #15

A product being good enough isn't enough. At some point you also need to price it, and communicate it's existence persuasively to the market and win market share, and it has to be distributed effectively. Most businesses fail because they solve for the easier bit (product) and then have no idea about the rest.

"Solving for product" is VC pidgin speak. Much contemporary software hardly solves anything anymore; it's getting shittier every iteration without fundamental progress in the field as everything turns into yet another dumbed down web-based abomination that robs us of more of our sanity (exceptions excepted!). There are good explanations for this, but I still don't like it.

The better product is the one customers choose to buy. If products are getting shitty it's because customers want shitty.

Re: We Have Learned Nothing

#35

Post by spacecadet »

tlb wrote: post #26

The fact that the survival rate of startups hasn't improved doesn't show that our knowledge hasn't improved. Startups are competitive, with only 1 or 2 VC-scale winners per market. So, the claim is like "race car technology hasn't gotten better, because there's still only one winner per race."

Racing competition is flattened through regulation(oversimplified). All drivers have the same car. Drivers skill and fearlessness is the deciding factor.

I came here to basically say this about running a company- but your comment was a better launching point.

As someone who has run several companies over the last 25 years and has read and or tried nearly ever "method" mentioned... Im now running a company where Im abandoning everything and just going at with skill and fearlessness... and no funding. It feels freeing, and we are growing.

Re: We Have Learned Nothing

#37

Post by apsurd »

dminik wrote: post #31
apsurd wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why does one need to take on ASML? I had to look it up, semiconductors. ASML market cap is ~500B. Meta market cap is ~1.5T. i'm no facebook fan but it was started by a dude in a dorm room. So I think saying "well those times are gone now" is defeatist. (fwiw i personally have no interest in building a trillion dollar company from my basement, just talking philosophy here)

If we're going to be like that, we should go for Nvidia. Their market cap is currently ~4T. I can see that going very well.

I'm genuinely asking why are we goaling on overtaking the most valuable companies in human history?

Startup advice, as i understand it, is about innovation: expanding the pie. I sound like a VC shill. Don't mean to be, i know it's riddled with rich people passing money around pretending like value is being created.

It's just I don't get what's so wrong with the HN crowd here trying to be better at building a successful company?

Re: We Have Learned Nothing

#38

Post by RGamma »

gzread wrote: post #34
RGamma wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Solving for product" is VC pidgin speak. Much contemporary software hardly solves anything anymore; it's getting shittier every iteration without fundamental progress in the field as everything turns into yet another dumbed down web-based abomination that robs us of more of our sanity (exceptions excepted!). There are good explanations for this, but I still don't like it.

The better product is the one customers choose to buy. If products are getting shitty it's because customers want shitty.

Yes, and customers are less informed than ever. RMS's "useds" (instead of users) comes to mind often in recent years. To clarify, I don't think one should considers it solely the user's fault, because user pedagogy is a shared responsibility, that needs to be offered and taken.

Re: We Have Learned Nothing

#39

Post by aboardRat4 »

apsurd wrote: post #37
dminik wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're going to be like that, we should go for Nvidia. Their market cap is currently ~4T. I can see that going very well.

I'm genuinely asking why are we goaling on overtaking the most valuable companies in human history? Startup advice, as i understand it, is about innovation: expanding the pie. I sound like a VC shill. Don't mean to be, i know it's riddled with rich people passing money around pretending like value is being created. It's just I don't get what's so wrong with the HN crowd here trying to be better at building a successf…

>I'm genuinely asking why are we goaling on overtaking the most valuable companies in human history?

The most valuable companies are expected to be the largest, and, as a result, the most inefficient hence the easiest to overtake.

Re: We Have Learned Nothing

#40

Post by aboardRat4 »

dminik wrote: post #28
apsurd wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is defeatist. What do I know, I don't run a billion dollar startup. But there's a valuable "necessary but not sufficient" insight to all good advice. The lean startup IS good advice. The best I can do with your argument is "getting out of the building is no longer sufficient". Sure. But it doesn't make the entire arch of how we got here "wrong". And yes, all companies were started with a few people, a few custom…

It may be defeatist, but it is correct. Seriously, how do you even realistically approach taking on ASML. They spent decades and billions of (investment) dollars to do insane moonshot research and it paid off. But it also closed off the door behind them. Entire countries (Russia, China, ...) have been trying to reproduce it. They have not succeeded yet.

>They have not succeeded yet.

Reproducing an ASML machine is a piece of cake. Okay, not a piece of cake but definitely doable. The problem is that you cannot sell your reproduction in rich countries because the US government will threaten you with sanctions and US companies will screech "patents!".

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