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On $600B of Y Combinator startup success

jaredheyman.medium.com

41–50 of 59 posts

Re: On $600B of Y Combinator startup success

#41
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The oldest company in the world is only 1443 years old (Kongo Gumi of Japan.) Most companies don't last a single human lifetime. It's completely besides the point to bring up things that play out over billions of years in that context. It's just trolling.

Pseudo-blasphemously, I immediately thought "Is the Catholic church older, and in some sense a company, selling salvation?".

Haha, yeah that raises some interesting questions about what a company is. I feel like you could look at it through that lens.

Re: On $600B of Y Combinator startup success

#42
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a long enough time scale everything is below value because our star collapses.

Hate to be pedantic but our star won't collapse it's not large enough for that, it will simply puff out and die leaving behind a very hot core called a White Dwarf

Well, talk about anti-climatic!

Re: On $600B of Y Combinator startup success

#46
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "dumping" period where your business gains marketshare and undercuts competitors to drive them under is an essential part of establishing monopoly power.

Also strangely enough it's illegal if you're already a successful company and try to do it in a new vertical, but completely fine if you're a couple unknowns with a few hundred million of venture capital.

Ninety-nine percent of private equity profits come from taking strategies that are illegal with regulated, public companies and applying them to unregulated assets. And venture capital is a subset of private equity. Almost every conversation VCs have amongst themselves would be considered market manipulation if it pertained to an exchange-traded company, and of course the fact that it's all insider trading goes without saying. So no one should be surprised.

Re: On $600B of Y Combinator startup success

#47
post #43

It's astonishing how much money can be made while providing absolutely nothing of value to society.

> ...absolutely nothing of value to society. Are you serious? I am interested to hear your perspective.

Most venture-funded startups solve silly non-problems or in fact cause serious harm to society, but make billions of dollars in doing it.

Meanwhile, we haven't been to the moon since the '70s, life expectancy in the US is declining, and a substantial percentage of our energy comes from coal. Oh, but if you want to bet your life savings on (entries in a distributed ledger that say you own) digital pictures of dog penises, I imagine there's a way to do it.

Technology didn't fix the evil of neoliberalism. It didn't clean anything up. It accelerated the corrosion.

Re: On $600B of Y Combinator startup success

#49
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a long enough time scale everything is below value because our star collapses.

The oldest company in the world is only 1443 years old (Kongo Gumi of Japan.) Most companies don't last a single human lifetime. It's completely besides the point to bring up things that play out over billions of years in that context. It's just trolling.

https://worksthatwork.com/3/kongo-gumi

Interesting that it started by building Buddhist Temples and has been building and maintaining them for that long. Cool!

Re: On $600B of Y Combinator startup success

#50
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ...absolutely nothing of value to society. Are you serious? I am interested to hear your perspective.

Most venture-funded startups solve silly non-problems or in fact cause serious harm to society, but make billions of dollars in doing it. Meanwhile, we haven't been to the moon since the '70s, life expectancy in the US is declining, and a substantial percentage of our energy comes from coal. Oh, but if you want to bet your life savings on (entries in a distributed ledger that say you own) digital pictures of dog peni…

How many of your arguments would apply to a casino?

Do you feel that the world shouldn’t be allowed to have casinos?

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