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I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

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Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#41

Post by M_Grey »

crdb wrote: post #40
M_Grey wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's all about people who've seen how absurdly rich you can get, and want a piece of that. That's all there is to it. The rest is window dressing and empty words to facilitate an IPO, selling the company, or hitting that lucky lottery win in some other way. When it inevitably, eventually implodes, nothing of lasting value will be lost.

> It's all about people who've seen how absurdly rich you can get Yes and no. As is often bandied about, the expected value of a career in startups is lower than in many other fields, and yet people do stay after seeing through the myth. A large part of it, at least that I've observed, is the energy, speed of execution, rapid change, the excitement and adventure of the startup world. You willingly give up expected va…

>Yes and no. As is often bandied about, the expected value of a career in startups is lower than in many other fields, and yet people do stay after seeing through the myth.

Hence, "Lottery".

Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#42

Post by pascalxus »

shruubi wrote: post #17

As someone who is outside of SF looking in, to me the whole startup culture there seems utterly insane. To me, it seems as though there is some kind of reality distortion field that convinces us all that no matter what we is being worked on or created, it is in some way world changing or "disruptive", despite how stupid it is, or how viable a market there is for what is being made. The funny thing is, organizations t…

Entrepreneurs and companies that get started are utterly desparate for solvable problems to solve. The ideas may seem "stupid" to you, but that's only because biggest problems have way too many barriers to entry and are typically guarded by rent seeking government lobbying legislation.

Take homelessness. I'm sure there's a technical way to build housing for cheap enough to get people back into houses. But, the government legislation makes it a complete non-starter. There are so many rules and regulations, a potential entrepreneur or existing Company couldn't even begin to dream of creating a solution. It's all Locked up. Homelessness is a problem that is illegal to solve, as so many things are.

Trust me, if it were legally possible to create housing that was profitable (low enough cost to cover expenses), I'm sure there would be dozens of builders lining up around the block to do it.

Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#43

Post by Retric »

candiodari wrote: post #35
M_Grey wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of people who think that governments need to be smaller, often for ideological reasons. Those people won't or can't accept the scale of problems which require those governments, and are too involved in their own mythology of "bootstraps" and the like to see beyond that. This is often also the reason why people who in no way stand to benefit from the status quo, deny AGW; the solution is ideologically…

The economic counterargument would be that any solution to a problem that is not a Nash-equilibrium cannot be implemented. Pretending otherwise is popular, expensive, painful, and doomed to failure as consuming all economic resources on the planet (or any finite amount) cannot fix the underlying problem. But a government can grow, grow, grow while pretending to solve the problem, failing, and "correcting" for the pro…

Depends on what problem your solving. If you want the oldest 10% of the population not to die in poverty that's actually fairly easy to solve. In you want ~0.00% deaths from starvation that's also easy to solve. However it's cheaper to provide basic heathcare to everyone than it is to provide top quality heathcare to the elderly.

Reducing drug use to some significantly lower level is very possible, ending it is not. Going to Mars is easy, colonizing Mars is a pipe dream. Governments can solve a wide range of problems reasonably efficiently, but open ended goals without a clear stopping point become unbound problems.

Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#44

Post by simplemath »

bootload wrote: post #21

"Find a problem you really care* about solving and pursue that. Even if the likelihood of success is slim, put your head down and go."* I'm interested in startup idea patterns, Care isn't one I've seen or heard before. Are there any examples of startups using this pattern and succeeding?

What's your definition of success?

Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#45

Post by pascalxus »

Not everything can be solved with technology. Sure, tech will play a role, but the biggest problem is Government, legislation and the laws that prevent innovation, increasing barriers to entry so high, it drives out and prevents all innovation: hence why there's not many innovative companies going after the trillion dollar housing market.

Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#46

Post by sardonicbryan »

epistasis wrote: post #9
woah wrote: post #4

What about all these corner grocery stores? They could be out saving the world, fighting malaria, going to mars, but what are they doing? Selling groceries. What a bunch of assholes.

Corner grocery stores don't fluff the press with stories about changing the world and grand visions.

Are soup kitchens assholes because Daniel Patterson and Roy Choi are making a big deal about "changing the world" through Locol?

Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#47

Post by WalterSear »

a13n wrote: post #39
samysaadi wrote: post #7

Let’s not forget that Elon Musk’s first company was a site that made city guides for newspapers. It’s much easier to start companies that solve small less impactful problems first, and then move onto the big important ideas. I think the problem is that a lot of the low hanging fruit has been picked. It’s pretty hard for a CS student out of college to tackle a healthcare problem with no experience in the matter..

Which is why most people shouldn't found companies straight out of college, they should join organizations with impactful missions that align with their goals.

Except those won't teach them what starting companies with small impactful goals would. Joining something large (larger than you could start) is the opposite.

Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#48

Post by smogcutter »

pascalxus wrote: post #42
shruubi wrote: post #17

As someone who is outside of SF looking in, to me the whole startup culture there seems utterly insane. To me, it seems as though there is some kind of reality distortion field that convinces us all that no matter what we is being worked on or created, it is in some way world changing or "disruptive", despite how stupid it is, or how viable a market there is for what is being made. The funny thing is, organizations t…

Entrepreneurs and companies that get started are utterly desparate for solvable problems to solve. The ideas may seem "stupid" to you, but that's only because biggest problems have way too many barriers to entry and are typically guarded by rent seeking government lobbying legislation. Take homelessness. I'm sure there's a technical way to build housing for cheap enough to get people back into houses. But, the govern…

In what specific ways is homelessness a problem which is illegal to solve?

Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#49

Post by astrodust »

pascalxus wrote: post #45

Not everything can be solved with technology. Sure, tech will play a role, but the biggest problem is Government, legislation and the laws that prevent innovation, increasing barriers to entry so high, it drives out and prevents all innovation: hence why there's not many innovative companies going after the trillion dollar housing market.

Not everything can be solved with technology, but many if not most things can be improved with it.

It's important to be specific here that "technology" does not necessarily mean an app, or code, or even computers. It means taking advantage of the rich ecosystem of products, services, and talent at our disposal today and improving something.

"Disruption" should be a positive change: Removing the old and replacing it with something new that's better in every respect.

Sadly "disrupting" companies often replace the old with some new thing that's not as good, but is more convenient, or is exactly the same just minus the middle man. That's not innovation, that's just optimization.

Re: I’m Done Pretending SF Tech Is Visionary

#50

Post by astrodust »

woah wrote: post #4

What about all these corner grocery stores? They could be out saving the world, fighting malaria, going to mars, but what are they doing? Selling groceries. What a bunch of assholes.

Corner grocery stores don't get hundreds of millions in VC funding, hire the brightest of this generation, and make them stock shelves of soup.
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