Build a Business, Not an Exit Strategy • Hacker News Board

Re: Build a Business, Not an Exit Strategy

#81

Post by pg » Sun, Oct 21, 2012, 2:51 AM UTC

Negitivefrags wrote: post #78

pg wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your mistake in turn is to assume that it's impossible for people to judge their own abilities. Lots of people think they could write a decent novel. Most are wrong. Suppose only .01% actually could. If your argument were correct, JK Rowling should assume her chances of writing a decent novel are .01%. She feels fairly confident that she could, but she has to discount that, because people are often mistaken about suc…

That is not an example of JK Rowling judging her own abilities. Her abilities were judged by the market when she published her books. It's possible to know one is good at something, it's just not possible to judge your own abilities .

I'm not talking about an existing book. I'm talking about the case where she's trying to predict the chance she'll be able to write a new book, before she's started it.

Her previous books should give her confidence that she'll be able to write another. That is one way in which she can judge her own abilities.

Re: Build a Business, Not an Exit Strategy

#82

Post by dstorrs » Sun, Oct 21, 2012, 2:52 AM UTC

fearless wrote: post #79

dstorrs wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I consider Zuckerberg to be rich. As far as I can tell from his and FB's public-facing personas, he's a failure at the things that really matter -- integrity, positive impact on others, respect of peers for anything other than wealth acquisition.

If you're actually arguing that FB doesn't have a positive impact on people, you are so far off the mark that you can't be reasoned with. You might be able to argue about Zuckerberg's methods, but the end result is that he created something that made hundreds of millions of people's lives better. Unless you've done the same, you don't really have the moral high ground here.

I'll ignore the ad hominem and the argument by implied assertion and assume that we have different definitions of "making people's lives better". What's yours?

Re: Build a Business, Not an Exit Strategy

#83

Post by rdl » Sun, Oct 21, 2012, 8:09 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #38

The critical mistake here is a misunderstanding of how probability works. If we know that x% of startups succeed, that doesn't mean that each group of founders starting a startup have x% chance of succeeding. Some people are orders of magnitude more likely to succeed than others. For those it's a good idea to start a startup. For the rest (a much larger group) it's a bad idea.

It's also totally meaningless to use the population statistics for "all new small businesses" and try to extrapolate to "scalable tech startups in silicon valley".

I'd have probably 50-80% odds of building a successful consulting business or other small technology business which scales directly on labor, generates ~$100k/yr in profit per employee (over salary), up to a few employees, etc.

I'd have lower odds of building a hugely successful consumer startup like Facebook. I'd hope it's a touch higher than for a random farmer in rural China, but still not that great.

I think I have better odds than many for building something in between -- a business focused infrastructure/security startup, maybe not a 1b user $100b business like Facebook, but also not a consultancy. Plenty of $100mm/yr revenue opportunities in the b2b space.

Even if the expected return for each type of business were the same over all people, I probably have a comparative advantage in b2b, and other people may have a comparative advantage in consultancy or in huge consumer startups.

Re: Build a Business, Not an Exit Strategy

#84

Post by fearless » Sun, Oct 21, 2012, 8:42 PM UTC

dstorrs wrote: post #82

fearless wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're actually arguing that FB doesn't have a positive impact on people, you are so far off the mark that you can't be reasoned with. You might be able to argue about Zuckerberg's methods, but the end result is that he created something that made hundreds of millions of people's lives better. Unless you've done the same, you don't really have the moral high ground here.

I'll ignore the ad hominem and the argument by implied assertion and assume that we have different definitions of "making people's lives better". What's yours?

I'm not attacking you personally, I just can't grasp your argument. I would think we could take as a given that most Facebook users would say Facebook makes their life better by allowing them to keep in touch with friends, etc. Again, you could argue that Facebook's management has done business in a way you don't approve of, but Facebook the product has undoubtedly had a net positive impact on hundreds of millions of people all over the world, not to mention the thousands of entrepreneurs and businesses that are building on top of the platform.

Studies show Facebook has created over 500,000 high level, high paying jobs.

This is a social network for God's sake, not a coal mine.

Re: Build a Business, Not an Exit Strategy

#85

Post by dusing » Mon, Oct 22, 2012, 2:36 AM UTC

seehafer wrote: post #22

dusing wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99.9999% of startups are not denting anything, or really even trying to.

I'd agree that most aren't, but that doesn't mean they're not trying to (laboring under mistaken assumptions and the like) This also depends on what making a "dent in the universe" means to you.

Personally I use Steve Jobs' definition. And yes some may "think" they are.