41–50 of 55 posts
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Startups could create products that generate revenue. They would use invested money to scale quickly.
by the time startup reaches 19B valuation i'd say it either have created such product or there is no chance for it to happen.
Not only is this argument wrong, the /opposite/ is true. Buyouts are actually the /engine/ of innovation. They're the fuel. The oil. You know this yourself. Just take a quick look at Silicon Valley - it's a hotbed of innovation. If you believed this argument, you'd expect to see a dirge of new businesses & a desert of new ideas. That's just not true. We have wearable tech. Quantified self. Bank challengers. News extr…
> The place is full of vibrant startups & new ideas. While there are certainly exceptions the vast majority of startups are not very innovative. Having some slight twist on sharing photos or sending messages or analytics isn't innovation.
The the people in Africa or Asia or Europe who can now bypass SMS charges and bypass the monopolies behind them, a messaging app can be innovative.
As a place for innovation, Silicon Valley is dead. It's now a cross between Hollywood for ugly people and Wall Street for people who can't hack winter. Acquisitions aren't the problem. If the alternative is hard-stop failure, meaning the work and acquired knowledge is effectively thrown away, I think M&A is far better. What is a step down is the replacement of R&D by M&A, but that's the fault of shortsighted executiv…
As someone heavily inclined to agree with the headline, I think I agree; acquisitions aren't exactly the problem.
That doesn't mean I'm not pissed off, though. The idealistic mythos of the Valley is so self-indulgent it makes the crap of the "crappier Wall Street" so much more filthy.
But then where does the idealism have to go? Technology can be truly 'innovative'--or, instead of an empty buzzword, Technology can create quality of life improvements and encourage disruptive (:P) egalitarian progress.
Google's doing amazing things. The corruption (Google+) follows too closely behind to be excited about it anymore.
As a place for innovation, Silicon Valley is dead. It's now a cross between Hollywood for ugly people and Wall Street for people who can't hack winter. Acquisitions aren't the problem. If the alternative is hard-stop failure, meaning the work and acquired knowledge is effectively thrown away, I think M&A is far better. What is a step down is the replacement of R&D by M&A, but that's the fault of shortsighted executiv…
AAPL - $158b, GOOG - $58b, CSCO - $48b, ORCL - $37b, INTC - $20b, HPQ - $16b, FB - $11b, EBAY - $9b
$357 billion in cash among just the top eight tech firms (cash wise). Those eight firms are generating roughly $100 billion a year in profit, compiling that cash hoard ever larger.
It's not surprising Silicon Valley has acquisition fever. Cash and equivalent yields almost nothing these days. To top it off, the stock market is at all time highs, so stock-as-acquisition-currency is primed as well.
1. Often acquisitions thrive under their new overlords (think android, youtube, instragram). They might also need the financial resources of the purchaser to aim higher.
2. Acquisitions increase the # of potential angel investors, which leads to more money for startups. Look at what PayPal's acquisition has done for innovation (it's famous "mafia" ended up funding and/or founding Facebook, Tesla, Palantir, Spacex etc.)
3. An acquisition culture leads to more examples of successful founders, which leads to more people wanting to be founders.
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by the time startup reaches 19B valuation i'd say it either have created such product or there is no chance for it to happen.
Valuation by which criteria? The asking price of an acquisition, paid in RSU with their value measured in the potential asking price for an acquisition? This seems a little circular.
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That's not really the meaning of innovation, though.
The second highest comment here (when I'm writing this anyway) contains this sentence: "Innovation is a vehicle for the creation of wealth." So it's not an uncommon meaning. Delusional, but not uncommon.
"Innovation is a vehicle for the creation of wealth" isn't defining innovation as creation of wealth, it's saying [innovation as defined] is a vehicle...
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> The place is full of vibrant startups & new ideas. While there are certainly exceptions the vast majority of startups are not very innovative. Having some slight twist on sharing photos or sending messages or analytics isn't innovation.
While there are certainly exceptions the vast majority of startups are not very innovative as far as you are concerned . The the people in Africa or Asia or Europe who can now bypass SMS charges and bypass the monopolies behind them, a messaging app can be innovative.
I didn't say most startups are not innovative at all - I said most startups are "not very innovative"
Innovation is the act of introducing something new...sending SMS messages at a lower cost is not very innovative.
Sigh, survivor bias taints this analysis so hard it hurts. There are lots and lots and lots of innovative startups that don't get acquired and go through the whole process without all that much press. You don't see them, it's boring to read "Startup that changes the ways machine tools are stocked at machine shops turns in another year." The really crazy ones (either crazy funding like Color, or crazy exits like Whats…
You know, the whole point of a venture capitalist was to provide money to companies that would take 5-7 years of profitability to cash out.
The idea that being a venture capitalist is akin to buying lottery tickets is only since the DotBomb.