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Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

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Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#51

Post by mezod »

anovikov wrote: post #31

It's more because people have realised that money is easier made outside of public space (crypto projects, scripts, other things that just extract money out of thin air) rather than by building something public that needs clients, investors, and exits. I have yet to meet a single startup billionaire but i already know at least one person who made 1B+ through scripting and several who are in 9 digit range. It's just e…

for what I understand, this is it.

I am not entirely sure of what you refer to with 'scripting' though (I assume crypto related), pretty broad word in our tech world :P

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#52

Post by schappim »

chrisrickard wrote: post #33
schappim wrote: post #30

It is insane I have to say this, but this quite literally is the best time ever to start a startup. The sheer leverage that AI provides founders today is simply astounding. I have leveraged AI tools to build things I would never have been able to build just several years ago. The case in point would be it is now extremely easy to create Chrome plugins that automate aspects of my business simply by asking Claude to do…

10% agree Marcus!

Only 10%?

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#54

Post by alexander2002 »

diggan wrote: post #38
KaiserPro wrote: post #17

I think the bigger issue is that most of the financial upsides of startups were illusory Unless you're a founder, you're unlikely to make any money, and predatory VC/backers using convertibles/senior debt to turn your equity into Zimbabwean dollars. Thats before any stats are calculated for lasting long enough to either IPO, make money or get bought out. As someone who did successfully exit, the stories of multiple-m…

> I think the bigger issue is that most of the financial upsides of startups were illusory I wouldn't say I'm an old-timer by any metrics, but even back in 2012 when I first discovered and joined HN, I remember it was pretty clear in the community (and people I spoke to around me) you shouldn't go to work at a startup if you were looking for "a lot + safe" money. Sure, you could belong to the 0.001% and work on the n…

Technology is inherently a domination force and you can see this invisible domination battle between technology startups all the time.

Have a moat* or get exhausted battling against other similar startups until one is the major winner.

Technology is the easy part (for most people) Winning the battle is the hard part.

TO summarize, win battle=big-payday

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#55

Post by diggan »

alexander2002 wrote: post #54
diggan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the bigger issue is that most of the financial upsides of startups were illusory I wouldn't say I'm an old-timer by any metrics, but even back in 2012 when I first discovered and joined HN, I remember it was pretty clear in the community (and people I spoke to around me) you shouldn't go to work at a startup if you were looking for "a lot + safe" money. Sure, you could belong to the 0.001% and work on the n…

Technology is inherently a domination force and you can see this invisible domination battle between technology startups all the time. Have a moat* or get exhausted battling against other similar startups until one is the major winner. Technology is the easy part (for most people) Winning the battle is the hard part. TO summarize, win battle=big-payday

That's assuming "Winning" means "More money", but that's not everyone's goal in life. There is plenty of space for smaller companies that earn enough profits to let every employee live a good life, without chasing unicorns.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#57

Post by pjc50 »

anovikov wrote: post #31

It's more because people have realised that money is easier made outside of public space (crypto projects, scripts, other things that just extract money out of thin air) rather than by building something public that needs clients, investors, and exits. I have yet to meet a single startup billionaire but i already know at least one person who made 1B+ through scripting and several who are in 9 digit range. It's just e…

The secret ingredient is crime?

(please explain "scripting" here, I don't think it means bash)

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#58

Post by Traubenfuchs »

KaiserPro wrote: post #17

I think the bigger issue is that most of the financial upsides of startups were illusory Unless you're a founder, you're unlikely to make any money, and predatory VC/backers using convertibles/senior debt to turn your equity into Zimbabwean dollars. Thats before any stats are calculated for lasting long enough to either IPO, make money or get bought out. As someone who did successfully exit, the stories of multiple-m…

If you join early, got plenty of stock options and the startup turns into a unicorn, those millions are totally possible.

Until then, naturally, it's all paper money. A bet. Maybe an investment, of your time and effort.

The majority of startups fail and the majority of startups having an IPO will not make anyone rich via stock grants.

It's definitely a safer bet to find a high paying job in a stable company.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#59

Post by InkCanon »

On the last point:

"The industry has matured. The low-hanging fruit of the mobile/web era has largely been picked, making truly innovative opportunities harder to find."

It is a repeating pattern in history that people think technology and science have reached a dead end. Michelsen (falsely attributed to Kelvin) declared principles of physics were already established before quantum mechanics. Watson said there was demand for maybe five computers in the world. These inevitably tend to be wrong because they misunderstand the dynamics of progress. Because technology is fractal, every invention spawns several others. The explosion of web was built on top of a lot of technology, and has supported a lot of technology too. Being an app or website has lots some of its initial novelty, but really this novelty was lost many years ago. Web itself has spawned many other frontiers - like innumerable frameworks, databases, languages etc. Those will spawn their own, etc.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#60

Post by NoboruWataya »

dcminter wrote: post #10

> What's changed? Largely, the make up of the audience in HN. I sincerely doubt that the hard core of people doing startups, thinking of doing a startup, or just very interested in the topic has gone away or changed attitude very much. But the profile of HN has grown. It's a miracle that it's still an interesting and curious group, but from comments I'd be astounded if there were not a far greater proportion of peopl…

> I'd be astounded if there were not a far greater proportion of people who are here because they are generically interested in tech topics and not specifically startups

This is certainly me. Generally interested in tech (and many of the other things that HNers seem to be interested in these days), but no real interest in startups. Hope I am not ruining HN for the old timers.

I started using this place a lot more in the last couple of years as Reddit went to shit, so I suspect that was a big driving force in changing the audience here.

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