Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nope, but I understand it's more convenient to think that.
Nope, but I understand you want to carry on being the only one that thinks that.
Happy to be "the only one" :)
Crazy New Ideas
801–808 of 808 posts
Re: Crazy New Ideas
#802Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're getting a bit semantic in defending what you certainly know is ad hominem misdirection. But if you want to double-down on it, it doesn't faze me. Your contention is that it is more important that I, a random commenter on the internet, am psychoanalyzed than to consider the substance of the argument I made. Your concern was how it was presented, not its content. I'll take that as a concession that the argument…
I answered your argument in my initial reply ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27070820 ): pg isn't saying that all crazy ideas by domain experts must be true, so a flagrant counterexample doesn't prove anything. Indeed, flagrant counterexamples are to be expected, since almost by definition, crazy ideas will have more variance than conventional ones. The problem is that there wasn't really much of an argument t…
No, your reply was a flagrant straw man. "every such idea must be true" != "confusing chance with wisdom or luck with skill." A straw man is where you're evading an argument by pretending it's something it isn't.
I certainly didn't "convert his point" into anything more "stupid" than what he said. In a somewhat farcically stereotypical way, this venture capitalist argues he makes decisions -- better than a coin toss presumably -- based on the notion that "domain experts" know what they're talking about. My contention was that venture capitalists don't pick winners better than a coin toss at all. They are simply gambling. When they win a jackpot, they construct a fiction that the win was predestined on some rational basis and not simply chance.
(Persisting with your ad hominem, by the way, isn't working.)
Re: Crazy New Ideas
#803Re: Crazy New Ideas
#804Lots of comments already, but I'll chime on in. I realized this very late in life, but I have a test for when it's time to pay attention to a new technology. It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____", were the blank is filled with something a nontechnical person doesn't understand or considers very cumbersome. The web: couldn't you ju…
Except for twitter, all the alternatives you wrote doesn't even fit the criteria of "couldn't you.." because it is not replacing the given product MVPs. What do you mean by update a page. Blog and wiki just "update the page" more than most other form of sites.
Re: Crazy New Ideas
#805Lots of comments already, but I'll chime on in. I realized this very late in life, but I have a test for when it's time to pay attention to a new technology. It's when technical people look at what seems like a groundbreaking idea, seem unimpressed, and say "couldn't you just _____", were the blank is filled with something a nontechnical person doesn't understand or considers very cumbersome. The web: couldn't you ju…
I think of this as my "Kardashian problem". I don't understand why the Kardashians are famous or wealthy. I mean I get the mechanics of it - famous legal case -> sex tape -> reality TV show. But I don't understand how this works, or why it works. This isn't their problem. They are very wealthy, famous, and they obviously totally grok how their market works. This is my problem. I should not attempt to produce a mass-m…
I met the owner of the garage on Oak Tree road in Edison, NJ several years back. Hia garage was part of Paris Hilton episode where she works with customers visiting for car repair. What he said shocked me. He said we are fools thinking that Paris Hilton is stupid. The joke is on us. He said she was paid a ten figure amount to be part of the show and she very well knew how the market worked.
Re: Crazy New Ideas
#806Graham's obviously inspired by some Kuhnian paradigms here, but in Grahamiam fashion, he doesn't cite anything to back it up. What I find interesting where he calls most people conservative is how when I'm discussing VCs, YC, etc with non SV people is we talk about how conservative they are. YC's business model for years was predicated on finding talent (kids) that was undervalued, underpaying them (10k was the initi…
Capital is the most conservative thing that exists. Any little sign of trouble and it flees. VC is not different, they just play the odds and invest in a way that the money is guaranteed back, but the optics is that they are "taking risks". They then lobby to have the goverment take that risk away, lobby against employees having power to never have any risk and so on. Capitalists are the most risk averse people.
I like this. Could you point me to some history of capital or a source of your understanding of this?
Re: Crazy New Ideas
#807Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think most crazy ideas crashing and burning is good enough to disprove the thesis. Even if 1 in 100 ideas that can bring about 10x change in important areas are all that succeed, we need those ideas to improve things. I think if you look for marketing you'll find it, so even ideas that win on technology can look like monopolist strong-arming if that's what you're looking for. Also not all ideas that win on te…
>> Even if 1 in 100 ideas that can bring about 10x change in important areas are all that succeed, we need those ideas to improve things Even by your own math this is a bad idea, with 1 in 100 leading to a 10x improvement we'd be better to stick with what we've got.
That’s not how math works. 10x improvements don’t necessary capture 10x revenue. And 100 experiments don’t necessarily cost 1x revenue each.
Re: Crazy New Ideas
#808Earlier quoted context omitted.
The parent is actually talking about a far larger category that existed commercially in a studied way long before the Kardashians, it's simply: sex sells. Madonna knew it in the 1980s. Britney or Jessica Simpson knew it in the 1990s. Paris Hilton knew it in the 2000s. The Kardashians have known it the past 15 years. Hugh Hefner knew it 70 years ago. Every model of consequence knows it. The Kardashians are extraordina…
There are literally millions of beautiful people trying to make a living out of being beautiful. I don't believe that "being beautiful" or "sex sells" adequately explains the success of any of the people you mention. And the target market for the Kardashians (I think, as far as I understand it) is not the people who find them sexually attractive. This is different from Marilyn Monroe, who mostly appealed to straight…
Yes, I had that thought too. My wife is an artistic, leftist resister type with a background in ballet, dance, and education. She watches the Kardashians, all the Housewives, the Shahs, all that crap. She doesn’t aspire to this either. She buys all her clothes in thrift shops! So it is extremely complex.