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Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

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Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#81

Post by pjc50 »

diggan wrote: post #55
alexander2002 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is called a "lifestyle business", which some people get very annoyed about. And as mentioned you can't get VC for this model.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#83

Post by troupo »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #58
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.

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

That's the thing: there's literally no business idea in most startups beyond "sell to the highest bidder at 1B+ valuation". And the rest are hoping to coast on unlimited investor money.

That's it.

There are no business plans of, you know, building a sustainably profitable company.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#84

Post by schappim »

wslh wrote: post #71
InkCanon wrote: post #59

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 de…

The point is about a specific technology, like software, not technology at all. For example, we continue to use the same vehicles (e.g. cars) with a well known technology while SpaceX is advancing on sending rockets to the space. Technology is advancing but some technology is well known. This is not to say that software is not evolving but most startups don't have an issue with building software but with business dev…

I 100% agree with this. It is now a lot easier to create software, but it does feel harder to reach customers, especially via Google/Meta Ads.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#85

Post by rUsHeYaFuBu »

tossandthrow wrote: post #5

IMHO building startup became a status symbol which means that the payment in respect for making a courageous adventure is lost and commoditized. We are slowly seeing the same for academia. Point 2 resonates with me. Risk adjusted it is very unlikely that one will make a reasonable salary doing startups. So it is conviction and heart that needs to drive it. For me, the main issue is that every time I voice the idea ab…

> entire sector is short sighted and profit obsessed

If you're in for-profit sector, I don't see why being concerned with the main goal first and foremost would be a bad thing.

No one's doing business or lending money to not see a return on that.

So if the problem is worth solving in this ecosystem it's worth it because it does actually turn a profit instead of some fantasy that it will magically appear at some imagined scale.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#86

Post by pjc50 »

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…

Here's a question: what's the list of startups fitting the criteria of

- after 2008 Great Financial Crisis

- actual startup, not spinoff from larger company

- financially successful exit

- early non-founder employees made a substantial amount of money?

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#87

Post by qrsjutsu »

(new) Data Sources and methods of collection have been maxed out, or rather, reached a plateau or, to be radically honest, the homogeneity of founders / techies / researchers has reached an unhealthy maximum / imbalance, which happened because VC and the financial culture in general is ... well, a bit too IQy, ...

it's a bit like psychology that, despite being true and insanely valuable, is bad for crowd control, to put it in slightly conspiratorial ( cooperative portfolio ) terms.

and there's of course the issue of the variety of engineers they grew and research fields they expanded. the narrowing of the playing field, in general.

but hey, let's read some PG article that distracts us with fake honey & not really milk, produced in shlobbering portfolio communist environments that spread back doors into teen minds to use perverted live telemetry to build poofy, roofie-craving consumers

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#88

Post by rUsHeYaFuBu »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #80
sureglymop wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly agree. And I think in practice, what is driven by curiosity and passion ends up being a better product. I think part of the reason why is that all over social media and the internet there are gurus telling people "you can be the next to be rich and you deserve it". But that's the wrong motivation to have ingrained in every potential founder.

> in practice, what is driven by curiosity and passion ends up being a better product. If it can survive. The problem here is that startups compete in the same economy as those more sustainable, passion-driven businesses - and because of their ruthless focus on growth, as well as access to vastly more capital, they win , effectively suppressing good products or outright preventing them from entering the market.

Free market thinkers here would say this is the market working as intended.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#89

Post by jpatten »

mrtksn wrote: post #28

I'm not sure that there's a startup winter at all, it looks like a web browser tech winter to me. AFAIK YC also changed their focus and now are looking for physical things much more - like supersonic jets. There is only so much you can do with organizing information and entertainment through HTML and JS and make a profit of it. Maybe there will be a nice whiplash gold rush for making the web great again as this pile…

Yeah I agree. The market for companies that do something in a web browser may be saturated, but outside of that world it feels like there are more opportunities than ever. For example in the space of AI + robotics we’ve barely scratched the surface.

I wonder if part of what’s happening may be a generational shift in how people in and around the startup world view work/life balance. In my limited experience, GenZ folks tend to place a premium on reasonable working hours, so it’s not surprising they would evaluate the trade offs between startups and big tech differently.

Re: Startup Winter: Hacker News Lost Its Faith

#90

Post by jillesvangurp »

wslh wrote: post #67
jillesvangurp wrote: post #50

A few problems with this view: 1) Big corporations continue to struggle with doing in house innovation. Hiring more people doesn't seem to work. Just look at the infamously long and ever growing list of failed Google stuff. They are spending billions on this stuff. And most of it fails. Most large companies struggle with doing big new things in house. 2) There continue to be successful startups challenging/disrupting…

I don't see your points contradicts the article in any way, it describes more variables in the scenario. The problem is the scale and the darwinist concepts. For example, while (1) is totally correct, you need ten of thousands of startups to have a few ones that are acquired by big companies. The need of big corps doesn't estimulate the creation of startups if incentives are not aligned.

You assume all value creation happens in these big companies and that the only valid exit is being acquired by them.

That's not really the case. A lot of value gets created outside these companies. And every time that happens, their default mode seems to panic, do a lot of hiring and ramp up some big R&D effort. Failure seems common for these projects. And typically more expensive than doing it via startups. Just look at all the spending on AI in big tech companies. Most of it seems rushed and not really that effective. And they are all responding to each other; and to some well funded startups that are succeeding where they are failing.

> you need ten of thousands of startups

Just do the math. That's a few tens of billions in funding. Well within range of the R&D budgets of these large companies (individually even). And of course a lot of the investment burden and risk is shared with a wider community of investors. Their main issue is absorbing this R&D and value back into their companies. Acquisitions and acquihires aren't that effective mostly.

Employing a large ineffective workforce at premium rates also isn't free and hardly a guarantee for value creation. That's why layoffs are a thing.

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