A venture capital firm says it invests in people “pre-idea, pre-team” • Hacker News Board

Re: A venture capital firm says it invests in people “pre-idea, pre-team”

#41

Post by littletimmy » Fri, Jun 12, 2015, 6:34 PM UTC

throwaway435231 wrote: post #32

michaelochurch wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, over 90% of getting funded by VCs is stuff that happens before birth, so yes, that is literally true.

Michael, what you've just written is a gratuitously negative comment[1] that adds nothing. Guess what, 99.999% of getting funded happened in Earth's prehistory of 4.5 billion years, at any point during which things could have gone differently and precluded humanity and culture. Out of the remaining 0.001% - 45,000 years - scarcely ten thousand consisted of the establishment of western civilization and only the scant…

You're being quite ridiculous.

All he said was that people's success and failures are to a large degree determined when they are born, which is true. The genes you're born with, the socioeconomic demographic you're born into, your parent's level of involvement, etc are all determined before you're born. That's factual. It is only with extreme effort and perseverance that one can counter acts of fate. It is possible, just unlikely.

How does Michael expressing this truth justify your personal rant against him?

Re: A venture capital firm says it invests in people “pre-idea, pre-team”

#42

Post by throwaway435232 » Fri, Jun 12, 2015, 8:00 PM UTC

discardorama wrote: post #38

throwaway435231 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Michael, what you've just written is a gratuitously negative comment[1] that adds nothing. Guess what, 99.999% of getting funded happened in Earth's prehistory of 4.5 billion years, at any point during which things could have gone differently and precluded humanity and culture. Out of the remaining 0.001% - 45,000 years - scarcely ten thousand consisted of the establishment of western civilization and only the scant…

Using a throwaway account to attack someone is not cool. If you have the balls (or the equivalent for the other gender), stand up and make the comment in your own name.

(same user, I lost the pwd). I wouldn't touch Michael's negative comments, nor do I want to prop up criticism with a username. he needs to just stop posting gratuitously negative thing about startups (most of what moves him to comment), which are not constructive, and it's up to the rest of us to downvote gratuitously negative things until he learns that this is not the forum for them, unless he starts phrasing them constructively. the other respondent already tried to make this about me ("Until you're a successful founder from a bad family background and no history of founding startups, no ivy league education"...) so I am glad that I didn't get into this under a normal account. this does not seem like a productive thread.

Re: A venture capital firm says it invests in people “pre-idea, pre-team”

#43

Post by throwaway435232 » Fri, Jun 12, 2015, 8:13 PM UTC

littletimmy wrote: post #41

throwaway435231 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Michael, what you've just written is a gratuitously negative comment[1] that adds nothing. Guess what, 99.999% of getting funded happened in Earth's prehistory of 4.5 billion years, at any point during which things could have gone differently and precluded humanity and culture. Out of the remaining 0.001% - 45,000 years - scarcely ten thousand consisted of the establishment of western civilization and only the scant…

You're being quite ridiculous. All he said was that people's success and failures are to a large degree determined when they are born, which is true. The genes you're born with, the socioeconomic demographic you're born into, your parent's level of involvement, etc are all determined before you're born. That's factual. It is only with extreme effort and perseverance that one can counter acts of fate. It is possible,…

(I don't think you should be downvoted for your question).

If he had phrased it the way you just did (in your middle paragraph) it would have been fine. He didn't, he just posted something inflammatory. so your middle paragraph is a lot better, it took thought rather than just writing down a literal truth. (it is also something nobody would disagree with, including me, and you certainly wouldn't have been downvoted for it.) If you had been the one to write the comment, I'd have also appreciated your suggestions as to what can be done about it systemically. your paragraph is quite productive, and an important point.

as a matter of fact, what do you suggest we do? (I mean concrete steps.) should funds try to set quotas for minorities, for example? (this is a genuine question, and I'm asking you littletimmy.)

Re: A venture capital firm says it invests in people “pre-idea, pre-team”

#44

Post by tkiley » Fri, Jun 12, 2015, 8:18 PM UTC

Sounds like they are trying to manufacture startups like Lou Pearlman manufactured musical acts.

I doubt there will be a tech startup equivalent of the Backstreet Boys, though.

Re: A venture capital firm says it invests in people “pre-idea, pre-team”

#45

Post by Phlarp » Fri, Jun 12, 2015, 9:21 PM UTC

throwaway435232 wrote: post #42

discardorama wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using a throwaway account to attack someone is not cool. If you have the balls (or the equivalent for the other gender), stand up and make the comment in your own name.

(same user, I lost the pwd). I wouldn't touch Michael's negative comments, nor do I want to prop up criticism with a username. he needs to just stop posting gratuitously negative thing about startups (most of what moves him to comment), which are not constructive, and it's up to the rest of us to downvote gratuitously negative things until he learns that this is not the forum for them, unless he starts phrasing them…

Notice how other people in this thread can level criticisms at both the topic of discussion and towards one another while flying their own handle?

Notice how you cannot do this?

Re: A venture capital firm says it invests in people “pre-idea, pre-team”

#46

Post by littletimmy » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 12:49 AM UTC

throwaway435232 wrote: post #43

littletimmy wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're being quite ridiculous. All he said was that people's success and failures are to a large degree determined when they are born, which is true. The genes you're born with, the socioeconomic demographic you're born into, your parent's level of involvement, etc are all determined before you're born. That's factual. It is only with extreme effort and perseverance that one can counter acts of fate. It is possible,…

(I don't think you should be downvoted for your question). If he had phrased it the way you just did (in your middle paragraph) it would have been fine. He didn't, he just posted something inflammatory. so your middle paragraph is a lot better, it took thought rather than just writing down a literal truth. (it is also something nobody would disagree with, including me, and you certainly wouldn't have been downvoted f…

What should we do is a really difficult question.

It will require a multi-pronged effort, ranging from trying to implement better labor laws to improve parental involvement and reduce stress among the poor, better community health plans to counter poor nutrition, better public schooling through investing in teacher's salaries etc. Maybe after 20 years of doing that we're going to see minorities improve their standards.

But considering that any such long-term approach will be blocked immediately by the free-market enthusiasts, I fear there is nothing much that we can do. That raises a more important question: is fight against the machine even possible?

Re: A venture capital firm says it invests in people “pre-idea, pre-team”

#47

Post by sorenbs » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 11:22 AM UTC

bengali3 wrote: post #27

sorenbs wrote: post #10

I'm at month 3 of the EF process. Happy to answer any questions :-)

> pre-idea, pre-team Assuming this was true for you? do you have an idea & team now? How long were you funded/hired without these two in place? Theoretically how long can one last in the program if you dont find these 2? How long have you been burning their cash, have you raised other funds? You could be considered an even Riskier (debatable) investment than the alternate of an actual startup with an MVP actively loo…

I think the EF model recognises that a lot of technical people create way more value than they are able to capture working in a traditional company. Some then go out and start companies of their own, but there’s a fairly large gap from labouring away at Google to going without salary for six months while you get yourself in a position to get into y-combinator et al.

EF tries to bridge that gap and capture a slice of the value in the process. It’s not for everyone, but I think more people should really consider this option.

Graphene detailed the economics, so I will just add that yes - the valuation is lower than what you could do had you spend 6-12 months on your own first, but in an endeavour that is likely to fail iteration speed is critically important. I have moved faster and learned more during 3 months with EF than I would have 6-12 months on my own. I’m still young but I won’t be forever - so I’m willing to give up a fraction of potential upside to decrease potential downside.

Personally I actually joined EF with a co-founder an idea and a product which is quite unusual. Two weeks into the program we decided to start from scratch and we are better off for doing so. EF is the kind of environment that encourages you to do this and an environment i missed during my time at university.

Re: A venture capital firm says it invests in people “pre-idea, pre-team”

#48

Post by sorenbs » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 11:35 AM UTC

dheera wrote: post #14

bergmann wrote: post #5

£10k for an 8% equity stake, how does this compare to other funding in London? The article mentions the "Founder Institute" provides £1k for 3.5%.

Doesn't YC give 120K for 7%? An incubator/accelerator that isn't as good as YC (and therefore has less to offer) should have a better deal than that to make up for the difference. Given YC as a baseline, an investment of 10K GBP == 15488 USD should be taking less than 0.9% of the company.

From the YC application page:

"The ideal company would have two or three founders. We’ll consider those with four or five. We’re reluctant to accept one-person companies, though we have funded a few."

There exists a large group of technical people who are currently only capturing a small fraction of the value they are creating for whom getting into a position where they would fit the YC ideal company is untenable. For this group EF is a valuable option and I'm quite surprised this model isn't more widespread.

Everybody in the EF cohort are quite smart so if they were in a position to take the YC deal i'm sure most would :-)

Re: A venture capital firm says it invests in people “pre-idea, pre-team”

#49

Post by throwaway435232 » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 1:07 PM UTC

Phlarp wrote: post #45

throwaway435232 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(same user, I lost the pwd). I wouldn't touch Michael's negative comments, nor do I want to prop up criticism with a username. he needs to just stop posting gratuitously negative thing about startups (most of what moves him to comment), which are not constructive, and it's up to the rest of us to downvote gratuitously negative things until he learns that this is not the forum for them, unless he starts phrasing them…

Notice how other people in this thread can level criticisms at both the topic of discussion and towards one another while flying their own handle? Notice how you cannot do this?

given that my main point is that this level of discourse is totally inappropriate for hackernews, there is no reason I would engage in this. it's like feeding a troll. if there were something substantial to discuss, that would be a different story.

Re: A venture capital firm says it invests in people “pre-idea, pre-team”

#50

Post by throwaway435232 » Sat, Jun 13, 2015, 1:10 PM UTC

littletimmy wrote: post #46

throwaway435232 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I don't think you should be downvoted for your question). If he had phrased it the way you just did (in your middle paragraph) it would have been fine. He didn't, he just posted something inflammatory. so your middle paragraph is a lot better, it took thought rather than just writing down a literal truth. (it is also something nobody would disagree with, including me, and you certainly wouldn't have been downvoted f…

What should we do is a really difficult question. It will require a multi-pronged effort, ranging from trying to implement better labor laws to improve parental involvement and reduce stress among the poor, better community health plans to counter poor nutrition, better public schooling through investing in teacher's salaries etc. Maybe after 20 years of doing that we're going to see minorities improve their standard…

Ah, your response is good but very wide and 'systemic', i.e. what society as a whole can do over decades. But in the meantime, VC's are free to make their investment decisions, so I was wondering what you thought they should do differently to make a difference, today. Should it be quotas or minimum investments for people from alternative backgrounds? Or, what can VC's do to help level the playing field? If they receive smaller amounts of dealflow from alternative backgrounds, it's hard for them to apply their usual methods of investing... i.e. they might not even get access to opportunities from those backgrounds. what, then, could be done?