19 ms·

Reconsider

906 points by josemrb 11y ago

sithadmin 11y ago
>Part of the problem seems to be that nobody these days is content to merely put their dent in the universe. No, they have to fucking own the universe. It’s not enough to be in the market, they have to dominate it. It’s not enough to serve customers, they have to capture them. I think this says more about the state of VC than startups themselves. Founders feel that if they don't run around banging pots and pans while tooting their own horn/vuvuzela, they won't ever get any attention from investors. Crowdsourcing early funding is just going to make this worse.
mbrock 11y ago
I'm eagerly awaiting the forthcoming geek poet who'll write our Howl. Who saw the best minds of our generation destroyed by startups... their skulls bashed open by a sphinx of capital... that moloch "whose mind is pure machinery... whose soul is electricity and banks!" http://genius.com/Allen-ginsberg-howl-annotated/ http://genius.com/Allen-ginsberg-howl-annotated/ Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch! Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky! Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible mad houses granite cocks! monstrous bombs! They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us! Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river! Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!
- saulrh 11y ago
  http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
  - mbrock 11y ago
    Thanks. I'm a few paragraphs in. Yeah, the poem is powerful because Moloch is not only a stereotyped evil other. ("The capitalists.") We are Moloch. "Moloch whose name is the Mind!" Speaking personally and unprofessionally, I feel a grand loss of innocence from the time when as a dorky kid when I wrote Emacs Lisp macros for fun. I don't blame others, I don't blame "capitalism," I don't blame teh evil bankers. I simply want money so that I won't need money so that I'll be "free," just like everyone wants this. I do appreciate what David has been saying for years.
    - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
      Capitalism is certainly worth blaming, at least for offering a lens to justify the deterioration of the global middle class. Essentially, the wealthy have come around to the idea as seeing the poor and middle classes and resources to be exploited, like a coal mine, by offloading their tax burdens onto them. The more people chafe under low pay and high taxes, the more easily they can be tricked into thinking the social support system is unsustainable and should be dismantled before people are taxed to death. People who created this mindset and let it fester know who they are. The rich who benefit stay silent. That's why this generation of CEOs who may be highly vocal about social issues tend to be conspicuously quiet about tax policy. For every Warren Buffett, there are a dozen post-exit founders who are happy to leave their capital gains tax rate where it is.
      - dragonwriter 11y ago
        > Essentially, the wealthy have come around to the idea as seeing the poor and middle classes and resources to be exploited, like a coal mine, by offloading their tax burdens onto them. "Come around to"? That's the central essence of capitalism, for which it was criticized by the socialists who put the name "capitalism" on it in the 19th century.
        vezzy-fnord 11y ago
        Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the term "capitalism" originally coined as a synonym for "wealth" (and particularly conspicuous wealth)? The novelist who coined it was writing a satire, but its origin doesn't strike me as implying an intrinsic value judgment.
- gaius 11y ago
  Jeff Hammerbacher: ‘The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads… That sucks.’
sholanozie 11y ago
Greed, lust, and gluttony. Three personality traits our money-focused society selects for.
- lgieron 11y ago
  Given how fit the people in California/NYC are, I'd say gluttony is off the table.
nrao123 11y ago
I am big fans of 37s. I learnt a lot from reading thier blog posts especially thier unconventional (at that time) thinking to avoid crazy detailed requirement docs, focus on blank error states etc... However, DHH's constant railing against the VC backed world seems a little tiresome. There seems to be a religious fervor to his essays that thier way is morally better (e.g. thier business model seems like a honest transaction vs VC backed startups who inflate numbers etc). I think a lot of people get that raising VC is not the only way to build a business (there is even a nice tradeoff statement (do you want to be Rich Vs King). It's a choice one makes. It's not morally inferior or superior to raise VCs or to bootstrap.
- beat 11y ago
  Isn't it? There's a history of con games (in both directions) in the VC world. It seems intuitive to me that it's easier for a "king" company to stay more focused on product and customers, and less on growth - sooner or later, if you're determined to grow at all costs, you'll have to decide to do something that hurts your customers, your team, your soul, in order to chase that growth. I mean, this isn't proof or anything. But there seems to be some intuitive truth to DHH's position.
  - nrao123 11y ago
    What do you mean by history of con games? I guess it's possible to build large businesses like Google, Facebook, Uber, Apple etc without taking VC money but its a choice that these founders made that taking VC money helps them increase the odds that they will achieve thier goals. What's wrong with that? On the other hand- you have perfectly good businesses like Craigslist, ESRI, SAS, Zoho who did it without raising VC money. Nothing wrong with that either. Just different choices made by the founders of these companies.
    - noblethrasher 11y ago
      Microsoft is also a famous example of company that did not take VC money.
mmphosis 11y ago
But in the end, they’re money lenders.
draw_down 11y ago
Not that I disagree with the main premise, but boy oh boy why waste time skewering terms like "Angel" and "liquidity event". Sophomoric.
- beat 11y ago
  Because it's fun? Personally, I take great pleasure in roasting sacred cows and eating them in front of the shocked faithful. I'm sure DHH does too.
  - MichaelGG 11y ago
    Do you really think anyone was "shocked" or that this was "roasting sacred cows"? It basically said " uh you can have a great life without seeking a huge exit, and your chances might be better, too". Do people actually take this stuff that seriously?
- joeevans1000 11y ago
  Because those terms are the propaganda of the machine, reused again and again by major media. They build up enthusiasm for the current startup culture in the general culture until part of your aunt's retirement fund has been invested in sketchy tech ventures. These terms need to be called out.
- mcphage 11y ago
  > why waste time skewering terms like "Angel" and "liquidity event" Because the terms they use for themselves indicates how they see themselves and the value of their role. They invest money in order to make money, but want to be seen as—and want other people to refer to them as—saving angels.
rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
People find themselves drawn to the unlikely startup success stories because they have a beautiful allure to them: if I spend every night tucked away writing code and focusing my entire life around my work, then maybe I, too, can be the next Zuckerburg! Even though this narrative is hugely removed from the realities of startup life (most college startups go nowhere, the most successful founders tend to be in their middle age with significant financial stability, etc), it is still romanticized by founders and startup employees and other people who really should know better. So then why do they buy it? To get people to work harder for you. Spending every waking moment in front of a customer or a computer screen eating bulk ramen sounds like a great montage scene in the movie you'll have an EP credit in, and this distorted reality is even easier to sell to impressionable young college grads who have maybe .1% of the equity (in options!) that founders and VCs get to keep. Why are jeans and hoodies the fashion choice of founders? Because if everyone is used to dressing like a poor college student, they tend not to notice how little they're truly being compensated. This isn't some big founder/VC conspiracy, it's complicit common sense.
- mbrock 11y ago
  Random thought. People also do WANT a "romantic" or "interesting" or "passionate" life or whatever you want to call it. All the talk about "work/life balance" and "stable income" and stuff is uninteresting to this mentality because in one sense all it is is a preference for stability, a kind of conservatism. I know people who have abandoned career altogether to go around busking, and they LOVE the "hustle" even when it sucks in objective terms. They love the sense of urgency, the sense of being on their own space fighter like in Firefly. With funded startups it's a bit different because you still have daddy in the board room handing out your allowance, but that's secondary. I can imagine someone semi-consciously optimizing their life in such a way as to avoid middle class normality as much as possible. If you want to get financially independent without doing "boring" stuff like working a stable career and investing in index funds, the notion of a wildly successful startup is perfect: you get to be interestingly poor for years, and then you can suddenly get fuck-off rich, with no intermediate period of dull stability. Presumably after that you can go off and build canoes with your friends or whatever it is you "really" want to do. Except that probably, for reasons David and others outline, the plan will fail and drag you into decades of pure hypocritical misery.
lojack 11y ago
I think DHH (and a lot of people) miss out on a lot of modestly growing startups that are doing relatively boring things because they don't hear about them. It's not that they don't exist. They just don't hear about them because they're relatively boring. The vast majority of (moderately successful) startups I see friends and colleagues starting or working for are in this group. For every one friend I see go work for a company like Uber, I see 10 more working for a startup that builds software for expense reports or HR teams or insurance companies or old school cab companies. They will never be billion dollar companies, and they probably won't IPO, and they may be an acquisition target -- but that certainly isn't their end goal. They are gaining customers and growing relatively sustainably, making smart choices about when to (or not) take outside funding.
- javajosh 11y ago
  Actually, he mentions that such startups don't need to tell their story like VC-funded startups do, to meet their recruitment goals, and so VC startups dominate the zeitgeist.
  - morgante 11y ago
    Most of those "modest" startups are also VC-funded.
    - mattmanser 11y ago
      Last time I looked through the YC alumni list (http://yclist.com/ http://yclist.com/) I was surprised at how heavily it was skewed B2C though. I haven't checked since W15 was added but a quick skim and it still seems fairly B2C focused. It's in their request for startups though. Seed funds don't seem to be an area that attracts B2B. I suspect it's because you have to be in the industry to understand the problem exists in the first place, so a huge segment of the YC applicants simply don't know about those opportunities as they've not worked in industry and only know about B2C opportunities.
      - morgante 11y ago
cellover 11y ago
I am in the process of creating a startup business with 2 partners. Our ultimate goal is NOT to get rich, is NOT to be famous, is NOT to be valued billions of rubles. We want to be free, we want to work on the projects that motivate us, we want to make our own decisions and decide when it's good to work and when it's not. For me this is the most motivating part of this adventure. I can totally relate to this article and it even gives me hope in our way of doing things.
- NoCulturalFit 11y ago
  Make a living basically? Can work on both ends, like cutting your costs. I wonder how much you would have to be living on annually in order to have a decent idea work? Is $20k too high? I've been working on that more than my startup recently. We could live on $20k annually for at least 4 years. Now I am trying to figure out a SaaS that could generate that within a couple of months. I don't mind fighting with price even though that's what you're not supposed to do.
  - cellover 11y ago
    Maybe I should have added the 3 of us are still employed in companies. So we are in a somewhat comfortable position. we are already making a little bit of money that compensate for the administrative and infrastructure costs (which are ridiculously low at the moment). We estimate that the company should earn around 25k € every month so we could quit our jobs but again our costs are very low so far. I'm not sure to properly understand your question here ; you want to have a side business so you can concentrate on your main startup? Anyway, good luck with your business(es)!
    - NoCulturalFit 11y ago
      Nah I actually have no employment (no cultural fit anywhere) - so I am focusing on (or figuring out) building something that could generate income pretty quickly, though I understand the size of the income wouldn't be big, so I've cut all my costs down for me and my family to $20k annually. Living on savings for now, which runs out in a couple of weeks.
bjacks 11y ago
I love this part of the article, it's incredibly important to remember this: "The web is the greatest entrepreneurial platform ever invented. Lowest barriers of entry, greatest human reach ever. I love the web. Permission-less, grand reach, diversity of implementation. Don’t believe this imaginary wall of access of money. It isn’t there."
- yesimahuman 11y ago
  I believe that the next evolution in startups is full recognition of this fact. Costs are practically zero for building viable SaaS products. Great developers are everywhere. This isn't just over optimism, it's largely true. What will that mean for startups and capital? My prediction is we will see new models, more "startup factories," etc. Interesting times.
  - ryanSrich 11y ago
    > Great developers are everywhere This is predominantly false. I would edit Great to mediocre.
    - s73v3r 11y ago
      I would say your statement is predominately false. Great developers can be found in most places, and even more if you don't require that everyone be together.
    - ryandrake 11y ago
      Which does not diminish the original point. Everybody says they will only hire genius top-1% programmers and that's usually ridiculous. For the vast majority of products, you don't need 20 great developers to build it and make it great. You can do it with 20 mediocre developers and one or two great leads who can mentor and help them perform at their best.
      - strayptr 11y ago
        If that's true, then it should be easy to name some startups that fell into technical mediocrity and recovered. Are there any? I saw the opposite happen firsthand: a company that was about to get steamrolled by a competitor, and they knew it. There was nothing they could do, even though they had over two years to prepare. The reason they couldn't do anything was because their team was mediocre. Last I checked, that company no longer had any job listings. How many people here have similar stories? It's tempting to believe that mediocre programmers can be mentored, but it doesn't seem that simple.
Chrossler 11y ago
Not reading. Someone summarize?
- tommoor 11y ago
  There's probably a startup for that
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - MrBra 11y ago
    I think they got downvoted because their "not reading" sounded a bit too hard, someway..
morgante 11y ago
> In the abstract, economic sense, a 30% chance of making $1M is as good as a 3% chance of making $30M is as good as a 0.3% chance at making $300M I see this repeated as a truism all the time by the anti-VC crowd and it sounds great. But is there actually any evidence whatsoever of it? The success rate for startups which have raised a Series A is substantially higher than the success rate for startups and small businesses in general. If it were true that avoiding VC funding somehow gave me a 30% chance of building a $1M business, I'd be happy to give it a shot (at least for a year or two). But I just don't see any evidence of that. If anything, it seems like companies which accept VC money have dramatically better odds of success than other startups. The only reason it seems like VC has a high failure rate is that nobody bothers to write a news article when a random small business fails. EDIT: Downvoters, kindly provide any evidence that avoiding VC funding increases your odds of success by 10x.
- samastur 11y ago
  I suspect you might be taking about a different thing. The way I read that line is that if you assume each of those chances is correct (which you have to since they are obviously made up), then they are equivalent in economic sense. It is not stating that chances themselves are correct.
  - morgante 11y ago
    Yes, the literal meaning of the line is that the expected values of those situations are equivalent (without saying that those statistics are necessarily accurate). But, based on DHH's other rants and the context of this piece, it's clear that he does in fact think the odds of success are higher without VC. (After all, if he didn't, this line would work against him.)
    - vonmoltke 11y ago
      > it's clear that he does in fact think the odds of success are higher without VC I think what is clear is that the odds of success are higher for the type of business VCs are not interested in. VCs may be better than those numbers at choosing the winners from that pile, but what of all the "VC-pattern" business that get passed over and almost inevitably fail as a result?
mangoman 11y ago
I'm so freaking happy that someone finally affirmed my feelings that maybe, just maybe, I don't need to start my own startup with the notion of "Unicorn or Bust". I've just felt wrong since graduating college 3 years ago, unable to motivate myself to hack outside of work, and this finally captures why I've felt so tired. I am tired of feeling like I need a Unicorn idea to justify working on something outside of my job. I want to work for myself, but it just hasn't felt possible without a plan to "Take over the world". I don't want to take over the world. I want to build something that people use and can sustain me. That's it. But for every idea, there are millions of reasons in the back of my head that stop me from doing it, all boiling down to "Well I just won't be able able to grow this as a startup". I don't really care about growing something as a startup. I don't need to revolutionize anything. I just want to make someone's day better through software. I want to launch a cool product that people find fun, silly, useful, critical to their process, whatever you want, and NOT be beholden to interests of anyone who isn't involved in the daily operations of whatever product that is. I just want to build something, and make it better every day. Something that I own, that I can change however I want, whenever I want. I shouldn't have felt like I needed a16z to invest in my company to believe that my product is worth something.
- vijayr 11y ago
  I started writing a comment that is nearly the same as this one, I'm glad I read yours before commenting. I guess there are lots of people who think the same way. I wonder where they hang out (other than HN)
  - natural219 11y ago
    A lot of people are looking for such a community. I suspect the effect he discusses in the article -- only hyper-growth VC-backed ventures get attention -- means the rest of us hang out on podcasts, twitter, obscure forums, weird corners of the internet, and real life.
    - vijayr 11y ago
      May be we should start a community then? Specifically for those looking to make something useful and make enough money to sustain themselves and their families.
gmarx 11y ago
I don't think early investors dubbed themselves "Angels". If I recall correctly it came from the term used for similar people who used to finance Broadway shows. I like to think some ingenue in the 1920s called some rich guy "angel" and got him to fund a show and it went from there. I should Google it but I miss speculating on things...
joeevans1000 11y ago
This is brilliant. The one thing it doesn't go into is the harm that will be done to healthy ventures when the bubble pops. Suddenly, everyone will have a bad taste and healthy ventures won't be able to get sane necessary resources and bridge loans, all thanks to the excesses of what's described in the piece. Not engaging in the insane startup culture described isn't just a healthy lifestyle choice, it's also taking a stand against a situation that will soon very much harm the tech industry as a whole. When the tide rushes away from the unicorn machine, it will carry away the innocent as well.
smackay 11y ago
The documentary, Hoop Dreams by Steve James and Frederick Marx captures the mania around startups just as well as it does for getting into the NBA. It's well worth watching. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoop_Dreams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoop_Dreams “Many are called but few are chosen”, Matthew 22:14
joesmo 11y ago
What a well-written piece. I agree that there is a lot of room for sustainable, technology based businesses. These are businesses that can optionally be run remotely and don't need to limit themselves to the bay area and its insane startup culture. They can work sane hours and be sustainable for their employees. They can provide products of real value. In fact, this is exactly the type of business that I'm interested in, the only kind with a success profile that's not tantamount to the success of playing the lottery, and the only kind where one can hope to stay in control and "be one's own boss." These types of businesses are very much startups, but have a more traditional philosophy and generally plan to stick around for longer than a few years. I'd say such businesses are often a lot riskier for the owners as they're generally risking their own money and time to get it developed rather than someone else's money. Spending someone else's money is not risky at all. Failure in a silicon valley startup isn't a real loss: it's expected. The people who venture out on their own and take their own risk with their own capital and time should be applauded for trying to create sustainable businesses that might be beneficial to the wider economy and society rather than creating ones that try to dominate a market for a couple of years and then almost inevitably fade out (as most startups do both before and even after IPO), not really adding much to the economy or society at all, while, of course, screaming the obligatory "I will change the world" mantra. In fact, it's this idiotic mantra and the lies one must tell oneself to actually believe it that turns off a lot of great talent form the silicon valley startup version of a business. Most smart people can eventually see through such simple, repeated, dogmatic ideas easily, and don't like to be associated with the brainwashed masses for whom these ideas are reality.
joesmo 11y ago
What a well-written piece. I agree that there is a lot of room for sustainable, technology based businesses. These are businesses that can optionally be run remotely and don't need to limit themselves to the bay area and its insane startup culture. They can work sane hours and be sustainable for their employees. They can provide products of real value. In fact, this is exactly the type of business that I'm interested in, the only kind with a success profile that's not tantamount to the success of playing the lottery, and the only kind where one can hope to stay in control and "be one's own boss." These types of businesses are very much startups, but have a more traditional philosophy and generally plan to stick around for longer than a few years. I'd say such businesses are often a lot riskier for the owners as they're generally risking their own money and time to get it developed rather than someone else's money. Spending someone else's money is not risky at all. Failure in a silicon valley startup isn't a real loss: it's expected. The people who venture out on their own and take their own risk with their own capital and time should be applauded for trying to create sustainable businesses that might be beneficial to the wider economy and society rather than creating ones that try to dominate a market for a couple of years and then almost inevitably fade out (as most startups do both before and even after IPO), not really adding much to the economy or society at all, while, of course, screaming the obligatory "I will change the world" mantra. In fact, it's this idiotic mantra and the lies one must tell oneself to actually believe it that turns off a lot of great talent form the silicon valley startup version of a business. Most smart people can eventually see through such simple, repeated, dogmatic ideas easily, and don't like to be associated with the brainwashed masses for whom these ideas are reality.
deleted 11y ago
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codingdave 11y ago
"Lifestyle companies." They are everywhere... but we are quieter than high-growth startups. Many of us work for them. We enjoy it. If anyone was not aware of their presence, step outside of the VC-driven culture. There is a whole other world out there.
- triangleman 11y ago
  Even the term "lifestyle company" sounds like a mocking label straight out of Silicon Valley.
wnevets 11y ago
Sounds like the plot of silicon valley.
iamsohungry 11y ago
Most of the time, "disrupt" is a euphemism for "put a Web 2.0 interface on". You're not disrupting shit, you're putting whitewash on a shoddily-cobbled-together product that other people have been doing better for decades. It's all style and no substance. If you're doing something new, you'll probably own the industry just by virtue of being there first. But you'll also probably not grow to be super-huge, because if you were solving a huge problem, it probably would have been solved already. The exception to this is when the problem is huge, but the technology wasn't there to solve it before: see search (Google), social media (Facebook), mobile apps (Uber). And even then the conditions need to be just right (an app for calling cabs would probably not have been nearly as successful if it didn't coincide with a legal loophole that allows them to undercut the taxi industry). But most ideas aren't those ideas. And that's okay. A business that solves a real problem, even if it isn't a huge problem, will likely be able to stay alive, profit, and grow just fine. Those "disrupting" companies that are all style and no substance will crash and burn when the tech bubble pops.
chejazi 11y ago
I think many founders echo his motivations. The one that he implicitly suggests is misaligned is: I wanted the best odds I could possible get at attaining the tipping point of financial stability. And that this is due to the corruption of investors. So I guess the takeaway is that if you raise money, choose your investors wisely.
zeeshanm 11y ago
The reality is you can't accomplish anything meaningful in life without being uncertain. It is OK to be unsure. It is OK to do things that are not sexy. It is OK to make small incremental improvements. Unicorns happen over time. Smart founders have patience and resilience to weather many storms ahead.
jarek 11y ago
Another submission for the flagged files. As of 17:51 GMT, this submission is 3 hours old and has 374 points, 68 comments, sitting in position 11 on the HN front page In position 10 is a submission from 8 hours ago with 100 points and 76 comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10505476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10505476) In position 1 is a submission from 4 hours ago with 177 points and 91 comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10506338 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10506338) edit: This isn't to pass judgment on the merits of the article, which seems a bit conveniently timed to a product launch linked at the bottom. But as a community we should realize what gets flagged/pushed down and by how much. update: at 18:51 GMT, this is 4 hours old, has 490 points, 97 comments, and is in position 26. In position 25 is a 5 hour old submission with 57 points and 15 comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10506372 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10506372) final update: at 19:24 GMT, this is off the front page at position 33. Age 5 hours, 536 points, 112 comments. In position 18 is a story from 10 hours ago, 362 points, 192 comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10505362); https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10505362); the 10506372 story referenced previously is now in position 31, 62 points, 16 comments, 5 hours ago.
- natural219 11y ago
  Is there seriously a list of HN flagged items somewhere? I fantasize about this often when I try to explain to friends how much quality content gets booted off of HN immediately these days. It's super heartbreaking and infuriating when they don't know what I'm talking about.
  - jarek 11y ago
    Not that I'm aware of. I made that joke since it's the second submission in a week I saw sunk far below its expected score (the Homejoy debacle was the other, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10469134 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10469134)
    - natural219 11y ago
      This happens very often. It's not until you start noticing it that you start noticing it.
deleted 11y ago
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MrBra 11y ago
That Terry Davis comment :)
jw989 11y ago
I really enjoyed reading this. However, I personally feel distain for the perspective of how every engineer should maintain a noble sense of worth. No matter the environmental differences of being in SF or elsewhere, people are bad at engineering wall to wall. While there are still successes at both sides of the coin. Frankly, 'Software eating the world' has nothing to do with us. It has to do with, well, the world. And my own struggle with the tech industry is how disconnected we are in the 'startup and grow' sector.
svckr 11y ago
At the end I pictured David, standing on stage, stared at by the audience. After a brief moment of silence, he drops the microphone. A loud crack echoes through the PA, followed by screeching feedback, before the audio engineer remembers to turn down the volume. Meanwhile David turns around, calmly stepping down the stage to be detained by the (Ge)StartupPolice…
manigandham 11y ago
I'm surprised this needed to be said. There are millions of small businesses (in the US) and the vast majority of them are just lifestyle businesses that bring freedom/pleasure/excitement to the owner with perhaps a possibility of earning more, but there are many that earn less than what they could make at a regular job with their same experience. This whole world domination startup thing seems to be localized to SV really. Nowhere else is this considered normal. By the way, there's a lot of confusion with just the term "startup" in general when it should really be reserved for something new (biz model, innovation, etc). If you're just doing something that's already been proven, which is completely ok, then it's just a small business.
- zeckalpha 11y ago
  Basecamp isn't a small business, nor does it stick to the already proven. They are constantly trying new things, and spinning out other companies when they're successful.
  - manigandham 11y ago
    Perhaps it isn't now but this whole thread is mostly referring to the start of a company in which case everything is a small business. Basecamp with 50 people is still small to me, I'd say companies need at least 100 people before they can be called mid-size. Trying new things means the other spun-out companies are startups. Basecamp itself is nothing new, just different software solving the same problem as hundreds of other project management and collaboration tools.
    - zeckalpha 11y ago
      What about executing an already "proven" idea really well?
      - manigandham 11y ago
        What about it? It's already proven so still nothing new. Just new version. I think new can be summarized as a new business model, new way to monetize something, new innovation like a product or service that didnt exist before, new industries in general, etc. There can be multiple startups doing the same problem but most "startups" in SV aren't really doing anything new, just a more modern approach or revamped UX of existing solutions so I wouldn't call them startups. There's nothing wrong just being a small business that grows into a medium and large business. Not everything has to be brand new and it's not always worth it either.
S4M 11y ago
I find interesting that this article, that got 541 points (at the time I am writing this) is out of the front page already. Makes me wonder if there is the hand of people (VCs) not wanting programmers to aim for lifestyle business behind that.
Futurebot 11y ago
I like this post, but we should contextualize it properly, and look at where it doesn't work. Things have developed over the past forty years which don't allow the "start small, stay small" to always be a possibility: the increase in winner-take-all markets and the Superstar effect. We see it everywhere when it comes to today's job markets, and we also see it (and potentially worry about it being the case, and this is critical) in industries themselves. This latter belief means that if you decide to start something, you may need to consider whether you should bother at all if you aren't going to go big. Is Uber in a winner take all market? If so, they have no choice but to operate the way they do: http://www.vox.com/2014/12/4/7336433/uber-worth- http://www.vox.com/2014/12/4/7336433/uber-worth- We see it in regular job markets more generally (where we call it job polarization): http://economics.mit.edu/files/5554 http://economics.mit.edu/files/5554 We see it in "art, sports and culture" markets (where we call it the Superstar effect): http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/business/winners-take-all-but-cant-we-still-dream.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/business/winners-take-all-... http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09/winner-take-all-economics.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09/win... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/business/26excerpt.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/business/26excerpt.html We see it in newspapers: http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2010/09/10/198480/technology-and-the-top-one-percent/ http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2010/09/10/198480/technolo... We see it in attention more generally (which has second order effects, like everyone use just one or a handful of large platforms(!) and where we call it variations of "winning in the Attention Economy"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy So the choice is sometimes (perhaps even often today) not between "get big" or "stay small/medium", but get big (where big may represent firm size, level of knowledge/skill, fame, or a number of other attributes depending on the area) or "get (almost) nothing." When the distribution of customers/eyeballs/rewards are as lopsided as they are in many areas, the only choice IS "get big or go home." More: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/12/how_technology_and_winner_take_all_markets_have_made_income_inequality_so_much_worse_.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/12/how_... http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09/winner-take-all-economics.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09/win... http://prospect.org/article/talent-and-winner-take-all-society http://prospect.org/article/talent-and-winner-take-all-socie... I don't knock dhh, and this is one of those posts I actually want to agree with, but it doesn't neatly comport with extant realities. I think even this advice, just like the advice to "get big" needs to be taken very carefully. All of these roads entail risk (obviously), but the choice of big versus small isn't as simple as implied.
juddlyon 11y ago
This post really resonates with me. I think there is a "silent majority" type of situation going on. Most people venturing out do it for the reasons DDH states: independence, the ability to work with people of your choosing, etc. Most of us don't care about winning some ridiculous lottery where smarmy Wall Street types stakehorse tech wunderkinds. Things have a way of balancing themselves out.
namocat 11y ago
Relevant bit from the latest season of the Startup podcast: https://youtu.be/qfpdzPnElVU?t=738 https://youtu.be/qfpdzPnElVU?t=738 *spoiler alert - this is toward the end of the season, in case you'd rather listen to the podcast in order
DigitalSea 11y ago
"I wanted a life beyond work. Hobbies, family, and intellectual stimulation and pursuits beyond Hacker News, what the next-next-next JavaScript framework looks like, and how we can optimize our signup funnel." drops the microphone What a great article. I am glad someone finally said something.
nialllarkin 11y ago
Eloquently expressed pov as we've come to expect from @dhh. Legend. Now what I'd love to hear is from founders of @stripe and @intercom as they have both lived the experience of developing 'lifestyle' scale businesses before bringing unicorns to the market

906 points by josemrb 11y ago

>Part of the problem seems to be that nobody these days is content to merely put their dent in the universe. No, they have to fucking own the universe. It’s not enough to be in the market, they have to dominate it. It’s not enough to serve customers, they have to capture them. I think this says more about the state of VC than startups themselves. Founders feel that if they don't run around banging pots and pans while tooting their own horn/vuvuzela, they won't ever get any attention from investors. Crowdsourcing early funding is just going to make this worse.

mbrock 11y ago

I'm eagerly awaiting the forthcoming geek poet who'll write our Howl. Who saw the best minds of our generation destroyed by startups... their skulls bashed open by a sphinx of capital... that moloch "whose mind is pure machinery... whose soul is electricity and banks!" http://genius.com/Allen-ginsberg-howl-annotated/ http://genius.com/Allen-ginsberg-howl-annotated/ Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Crazy in Moloch! Cocksucker in Moloch! Lacklove and manless in Moloch! Moloch who entered my soul early! Moloch in whom I am a consciousness without a body! Moloch who frightened me out of my natural ecstasy! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky! Moloch! Moloch! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible mad houses granite cocks! monstrous bombs! They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us! Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river! Dreams! adorations! illuminations! religions! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit!

saulrh 11y ago
http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
- mbrock 11y ago
  Thanks. I'm a few paragraphs in. Yeah, the poem is powerful because Moloch is not only a stereotyped evil other. ("The capitalists.") We are Moloch. "Moloch whose name is the Mind!" Speaking personally and unprofessionally, I feel a grand loss of innocence from the time when as a dorky kid when I wrote Emacs Lisp macros for fun. I don't blame others, I don't blame "capitalism," I don't blame teh evil bankers. I simply want money so that I won't need money so that I'll be "free," just like everyone wants this. I do appreciate what David has been saying for years.
  - rm_-rf_slash 11y ago
    Capitalism is certainly worth blaming, at least for offering a lens to justify the deterioration of the global middle class. Essentially, the wealthy have come around to the idea as seeing the poor and middle classes and resources to be exploited, like a coal mine, by offloading their tax burdens onto them. The more people chafe under low pay and high taxes, the more easily they can be tricked into thinking the social support system is unsustainable and should be dismantled before people are taxed to death. People who created this mindset and let it fester know who they are. The rich who benefit stay silent. That's why this generation of CEOs who may be highly vocal about social issues tend to be conspicuously quiet about tax policy. For every Warren Buffett, there are a dozen post-exit founders who are happy to leave their capital gains tax rate where it is.
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      > Essentially, the wealthy have come around to the idea as seeing the poor and middle classes and resources to be exploited, like a coal mine, by offloading their tax burdens onto them. "Come around to"? That's the central essence of capitalism, for which it was criticized by the socialists who put the name "capitalism" on it in the 19th century.
      - vezzy-fnord 11y ago
        Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the term "capitalism" originally coined as a synonym for "wealth" (and particularly conspicuous wealth)? The novelist who coined it was writing a satire, but its origin doesn't strike me as implying an intrinsic value judgment.
gaius 11y ago
Jeff Hammerbacher: ‘The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads… That sucks.’

sholanozie 11y ago

Greed, lust, and gluttony. Three personality traits our money-focused society selects for.

lgieron 11y ago
Given how fit the people in California/NYC are, I'd say gluttony is off the table.

nrao123 11y ago

I am big fans of 37s. I learnt a lot from reading thier blog posts especially thier unconventional (at that time) thinking to avoid crazy detailed requirement docs, focus on blank error states etc... However, DHH's constant railing against the VC backed world seems a little tiresome. There seems to be a religious fervor to his essays that thier way is morally better (e.g. thier business model seems like a honest transaction vs VC backed startups who inflate numbers etc). I think a lot of people get that raising VC is not the only way to build a business (there is even a nice tradeoff statement (do you want to be Rich Vs King). It's a choice one makes. It's not morally inferior or superior to raise VCs or to bootstrap.

beat 11y ago
Isn't it? There's a history of con games (in both directions) in the VC world. It seems intuitive to me that it's easier for a "king" company to stay more focused on product and customers, and less on growth - sooner or later, if you're determined to grow at all costs, you'll have to decide to do something that hurts your customers, your team, your soul, in order to chase that growth. I mean, this isn't proof or anything. But there seems to be some intuitive truth to DHH's position.
- nrao123 11y ago
  What do you mean by history of con games? I guess it's possible to build large businesses like Google, Facebook, Uber, Apple etc without taking VC money but its a choice that these founders made that taking VC money helps them increase the odds that they will achieve thier goals. What's wrong with that? On the other hand- you have perfectly good businesses like Craigslist, ESRI, SAS, Zoho who did it without raising VC money. Nothing wrong with that either. Just different choices made by the founders of these companies.
  - noblethrasher 11y ago
    Microsoft is also a famous example of company that did not take VC money.

mmphosis 11y ago

But in the end, they’re money lenders.

draw_down 11y ago

Not that I disagree with the main premise, but boy oh boy why waste time skewering terms like "Angel" and "liquidity event". Sophomoric.

beat 11y ago
Because it's fun? Personally, I take great pleasure in roasting sacred cows and eating them in front of the shocked faithful. I'm sure DHH does too.
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  Do you really think anyone was "shocked" or that this was "roasting sacred cows"? It basically said " uh you can have a great life without seeking a huge exit, and your chances might be better, too". Do people actually take this stuff that seriously?
joeevans1000 11y ago
Because those terms are the propaganda of the machine, reused again and again by major media. They build up enthusiasm for the current startup culture in the general culture until part of your aunt's retirement fund has been invested in sketchy tech ventures. These terms need to be called out.
mcphage 11y ago
> why waste time skewering terms like "Angel" and "liquidity event" Because the terms they use for themselves indicates how they see themselves and the value of their role. They invest money in order to make money, but want to be seen as—and want other people to refer to them as—saving angels.

rm_-rf_slash 11y ago

People find themselves drawn to the unlikely startup success stories because they have a beautiful allure to them: if I spend every night tucked away writing code and focusing my entire life around my work, then maybe I, too, can be the next Zuckerburg! Even though this narrative is hugely removed from the realities of startup life (most college startups go nowhere, the most successful founders tend to be in their middle age with significant financial stability, etc), it is still romanticized by founders and startup employees and other people who really should know better. So then why do they buy it? To get people to work harder for you. Spending every waking moment in front of a customer or a computer screen eating bulk ramen sounds like a great montage scene in the movie you'll have an EP credit in, and this distorted reality is even easier to sell to impressionable young college grads who have maybe .1% of the equity (in options!) that founders and VCs get to keep. Why are jeans and hoodies the fashion choice of founders? Because if everyone is used to dressing like a poor college student, they tend not to notice how little they're truly being compensated. This isn't some big founder/VC conspiracy, it's complicit common sense.

mbrock 11y ago
Random thought. People also do WANT a "romantic" or "interesting" or "passionate" life or whatever you want to call it. All the talk about "work/life balance" and "stable income" and stuff is uninteresting to this mentality because in one sense all it is is a preference for stability, a kind of conservatism. I know people who have abandoned career altogether to go around busking, and they LOVE the "hustle" even when it sucks in objective terms. They love the sense of urgency, the sense of being on their own space fighter like in Firefly. With funded startups it's a bit different because you still have daddy in the board room handing out your allowance, but that's secondary. I can imagine someone semi-consciously optimizing their life in such a way as to avoid middle class normality as much as possible. If you want to get financially independent without doing "boring" stuff like working a stable career and investing in index funds, the notion of a wildly successful startup is perfect: you get to be interestingly poor for years, and then you can suddenly get fuck-off rich, with no intermediate period of dull stability. Presumably after that you can go off and build canoes with your friends or whatever it is you "really" want to do. Except that probably, for reasons David and others outline, the plan will fail and drag you into decades of pure hypocritical misery.

lojack 11y ago

I think DHH (and a lot of people) miss out on a lot of modestly growing startups that are doing relatively boring things because they don't hear about them. It's not that they don't exist. They just don't hear about them because they're relatively boring. The vast majority of (moderately successful) startups I see friends and colleagues starting or working for are in this group. For every one friend I see go work for a company like Uber, I see 10 more working for a startup that builds software for expense reports or HR teams or insurance companies or old school cab companies. They will never be billion dollar companies, and they probably won't IPO, and they may be an acquisition target -- but that certainly isn't their end goal. They are gaining customers and growing relatively sustainably, making smart choices about when to (or not) take outside funding.

javajosh 11y ago
Actually, he mentions that such startups don't need to tell their story like VC-funded startups do, to meet their recruitment goals, and so VC startups dominate the zeitgeist.
- morgante 11y ago
  Most of those "modest" startups are also VC-funded.
  - mattmanser 11y ago
    Last time I looked through the YC alumni list (http://yclist.com/ http://yclist.com/) I was surprised at how heavily it was skewed B2C though. I haven't checked since W15 was added but a quick skim and it still seems fairly B2C focused. It's in their request for startups though. Seed funds don't seem to be an area that attracts B2B. I suspect it's because you have to be in the industry to understand the problem exists in the first place, so a huge segment of the YC applicants simply don't know about those opportunities as they've not worked in industry and only know about B2C opportunities.
    - morgante 11y ago

cellover 11y ago

I am in the process of creating a startup business with 2 partners. Our ultimate goal is NOT to get rich, is NOT to be famous, is NOT to be valued billions of rubles. We want to be free, we want to work on the projects that motivate us, we want to make our own decisions and decide when it's good to work and when it's not. For me this is the most motivating part of this adventure. I can totally relate to this article and it even gives me hope in our way of doing things.

NoCulturalFit 11y ago
Make a living basically? Can work on both ends, like cutting your costs. I wonder how much you would have to be living on annually in order to have a decent idea work? Is $20k too high? I've been working on that more than my startup recently. We could live on $20k annually for at least 4 years. Now I am trying to figure out a SaaS that could generate that within a couple of months. I don't mind fighting with price even though that's what you're not supposed to do.
- cellover 11y ago
  Maybe I should have added the 3 of us are still employed in companies. So we are in a somewhat comfortable position. we are already making a little bit of money that compensate for the administrative and infrastructure costs (which are ridiculously low at the moment). We estimate that the company should earn around 25k € every month so we could quit our jobs but again our costs are very low so far. I'm not sure to properly understand your question here ; you want to have a side business so you can concentrate on your main startup? Anyway, good luck with your business(es)!
  - NoCulturalFit 11y ago
    Nah I actually have no employment (no cultural fit anywhere) - so I am focusing on (or figuring out) building something that could generate income pretty quickly, though I understand the size of the income wouldn't be big, so I've cut all my costs down for me and my family to $20k annually. Living on savings for now, which runs out in a couple of weeks.

bjacks 11y ago

I love this part of the article, it's incredibly important to remember this: "The web is the greatest entrepreneurial platform ever invented. Lowest barriers of entry, greatest human reach ever. I love the web. Permission-less, grand reach, diversity of implementation. Don’t believe this imaginary wall of access of money. It isn’t there."

yesimahuman 11y ago
I believe that the next evolution in startups is full recognition of this fact. Costs are practically zero for building viable SaaS products. Great developers are everywhere. This isn't just over optimism, it's largely true. What will that mean for startups and capital? My prediction is we will see new models, more "startup factories," etc. Interesting times.
- ryanSrich 11y ago
  > Great developers are everywhere This is predominantly false. I would edit Great to mediocre.
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    I would say your statement is predominately false. Great developers can be found in most places, and even more if you don't require that everyone be together.
  - ryandrake 11y ago
    Which does not diminish the original point. Everybody says they will only hire genius top-1% programmers and that's usually ridiculous. For the vast majority of products, you don't need 20 great developers to build it and make it great. You can do it with 20 mediocre developers and one or two great leads who can mentor and help them perform at their best.
    - strayptr 11y ago
      If that's true, then it should be easy to name some startups that fell into technical mediocrity and recovered. Are there any? I saw the opposite happen firsthand: a company that was about to get steamrolled by a competitor, and they knew it. There was nothing they could do, even though they had over two years to prepare. The reason they couldn't do anything was because their team was mediocre. Last I checked, that company no longer had any job listings. How many people here have similar stories? It's tempting to believe that mediocre programmers can be mentored, but it doesn't seem that simple.

Chrossler 11y ago

Not reading. Someone summarize?

tommoor 11y ago
There's probably a startup for that
deleted 11y ago
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- MrBra 11y ago
  I think they got downvoted because their "not reading" sounded a bit too hard, someway..

morgante 11y ago

> In the abstract, economic sense, a 30% chance of making $1M is as good as a 3% chance of making $30M is as good as a 0.3% chance at making $300M I see this repeated as a truism all the time by the anti-VC crowd and it sounds great. But is there actually any evidence whatsoever of it? The success rate for startups which have raised a Series A is substantially higher than the success rate for startups and small businesses in general. If it were true that avoiding VC funding somehow gave me a 30% chance of building a $1M business, I'd be happy to give it a shot (at least for a year or two). But I just don't see any evidence of that. If anything, it seems like companies which accept VC money have dramatically better odds of success than other startups. The only reason it seems like VC has a high failure rate is that nobody bothers to write a news article when a random small business fails. EDIT: Downvoters, kindly provide any evidence that avoiding VC funding increases your odds of success by 10x.

samastur 11y ago
I suspect you might be taking about a different thing. The way I read that line is that if you assume each of those chances is correct (which you have to since they are obviously made up), then they are equivalent in economic sense. It is not stating that chances themselves are correct.
- morgante 11y ago
  Yes, the literal meaning of the line is that the expected values of those situations are equivalent (without saying that those statistics are necessarily accurate). But, based on DHH's other rants and the context of this piece, it's clear that he does in fact think the odds of success are higher without VC. (After all, if he didn't, this line would work against him.)
  - vonmoltke 11y ago
    > it's clear that he does in fact think the odds of success are higher without VC I think what is clear is that the odds of success are higher for the type of business VCs are not interested in. VCs may be better than those numbers at choosing the winners from that pile, but what of all the "VC-pattern" business that get passed over and almost inevitably fail as a result?

mangoman 11y ago

I'm so freaking happy that someone finally affirmed my feelings that maybe, just maybe, I don't need to start my own startup with the notion of "Unicorn or Bust". I've just felt wrong since graduating college 3 years ago, unable to motivate myself to hack outside of work, and this finally captures why I've felt so tired. I am tired of feeling like I need a Unicorn idea to justify working on something outside of my job. I want to work for myself, but it just hasn't felt possible without a plan to "Take over the world". I don't want to take over the world. I want to build something that people use and can sustain me. That's it. But for every idea, there are millions of reasons in the back of my head that stop me from doing it, all boiling down to "Well I just won't be able able to grow this as a startup". I don't really care about growing something as a startup. I don't need to revolutionize anything. I just want to make someone's day better through software. I want to launch a cool product that people find fun, silly, useful, critical to their process, whatever you want, and NOT be beholden to interests of anyone who isn't involved in the daily operations of whatever product that is. I just want to build something, and make it better every day. Something that I own, that I can change however I want, whenever I want. I shouldn't have felt like I needed a16z to invest in my company to believe that my product is worth something.

vijayr 11y ago
I started writing a comment that is nearly the same as this one, I'm glad I read yours before commenting. I guess there are lots of people who think the same way. I wonder where they hang out (other than HN)
- natural219 11y ago
  A lot of people are looking for such a community. I suspect the effect he discusses in the article -- only hyper-growth VC-backed ventures get attention -- means the rest of us hang out on podcasts, twitter, obscure forums, weird corners of the internet, and real life.
  - vijayr 11y ago
    May be we should start a community then? Specifically for those looking to make something useful and make enough money to sustain themselves and their families.

gmarx 11y ago

I don't think early investors dubbed themselves "Angels". If I recall correctly it came from the term used for similar people who used to finance Broadway shows. I like to think some ingenue in the 1920s called some rich guy "angel" and got him to fund a show and it went from there. I should Google it but I miss speculating on things...

joeevans1000 11y ago

This is brilliant. The one thing it doesn't go into is the harm that will be done to healthy ventures when the bubble pops. Suddenly, everyone will have a bad taste and healthy ventures won't be able to get sane necessary resources and bridge loans, all thanks to the excesses of what's described in the piece. Not engaging in the insane startup culture described isn't just a healthy lifestyle choice, it's also taking a stand against a situation that will soon very much harm the tech industry as a whole. When the tide rushes away from the unicorn machine, it will carry away the innocent as well.

smackay 11y ago

The documentary, Hoop Dreams by Steve James and Frederick Marx captures the mania around startups just as well as it does for getting into the NBA. It's well worth watching. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoop_Dreams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoop_Dreams “Many are called but few are chosen”, Matthew 22:14

joesmo 11y ago

What a well-written piece. I agree that there is a lot of room for sustainable, technology based businesses. These are businesses that can optionally be run remotely and don't need to limit themselves to the bay area and its insane startup culture. They can work sane hours and be sustainable for their employees. They can provide products of real value. In fact, this is exactly the type of business that I'm interested in, the only kind with a success profile that's not tantamount to the success of playing the lottery, and the only kind where one can hope to stay in control and "be one's own boss." These types of businesses are very much startups, but have a more traditional philosophy and generally plan to stick around for longer than a few years. I'd say such businesses are often a lot riskier for the owners as they're generally risking their own money and time to get it developed rather than someone else's money. Spending someone else's money is not risky at all. Failure in a silicon valley startup isn't a real loss: it's expected. The people who venture out on their own and take their own risk with their own capital and time should be applauded for trying to create sustainable businesses that might be beneficial to the wider economy and society rather than creating ones that try to dominate a market for a couple of years and then almost inevitably fade out (as most startups do both before and even after IPO), not really adding much to the economy or society at all, while, of course, screaming the obligatory "I will change the world" mantra. In fact, it's this idiotic mantra and the lies one must tell oneself to actually believe it that turns off a lot of great talent form the silicon valley startup version of a business. Most smart people can eventually see through such simple, repeated, dogmatic ideas easily, and don't like to be associated with the brainwashed masses for whom these ideas are reality.

joesmo 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

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codingdave 11y ago

"Lifestyle companies." They are everywhere... but we are quieter than high-growth startups. Many of us work for them. We enjoy it. If anyone was not aware of their presence, step outside of the VC-driven culture. There is a whole other world out there.

triangleman 11y ago
Even the term "lifestyle company" sounds like a mocking label straight out of Silicon Valley.

wnevets 11y ago

Sounds like the plot of silicon valley.

iamsohungry 11y ago

Most of the time, "disrupt" is a euphemism for "put a Web 2.0 interface on". You're not disrupting shit, you're putting whitewash on a shoddily-cobbled-together product that other people have been doing better for decades. It's all style and no substance. If you're doing something new, you'll probably own the industry just by virtue of being there first. But you'll also probably not grow to be super-huge, because if you were solving a huge problem, it probably would have been solved already. The exception to this is when the problem is huge, but the technology wasn't there to solve it before: see search (Google), social media (Facebook), mobile apps (Uber). And even then the conditions need to be just right (an app for calling cabs would probably not have been nearly as successful if it didn't coincide with a legal loophole that allows them to undercut the taxi industry). But most ideas aren't those ideas. And that's okay. A business that solves a real problem, even if it isn't a huge problem, will likely be able to stay alive, profit, and grow just fine. Those "disrupting" companies that are all style and no substance will crash and burn when the tech bubble pops.

chejazi 11y ago

I think many founders echo his motivations. The one that he implicitly suggests is misaligned is: I wanted the best odds I could possible get at attaining the tipping point of financial stability. And that this is due to the corruption of investors. So I guess the takeaway is that if you raise money, choose your investors wisely.

zeeshanm 11y ago

The reality is you can't accomplish anything meaningful in life without being uncertain. It is OK to be unsure. It is OK to do things that are not sexy. It is OK to make small incremental improvements. Unicorns happen over time. Smart founders have patience and resilience to weather many storms ahead.

jarek 11y ago

Another submission for the flagged files. As of 17:51 GMT, this submission is 3 hours old and has 374 points, 68 comments, sitting in position 11 on the HN front page In position 10 is a submission from 8 hours ago with 100 points and 76 comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10505476 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10505476) In position 1 is a submission from 4 hours ago with 177 points and 91 comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10506338 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10506338) edit: This isn't to pass judgment on the merits of the article, which seems a bit conveniently timed to a product launch linked at the bottom. But as a community we should realize what gets flagged/pushed down and by how much. update: at 18:51 GMT, this is 4 hours old, has 490 points, 97 comments, and is in position 26. In position 25 is a 5 hour old submission with 57 points and 15 comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10506372 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10506372) final update: at 19:24 GMT, this is off the front page at position 33. Age 5 hours, 536 points, 112 comments. In position 18 is a story from 10 hours ago, 362 points, 192 comments (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10505362); https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10505362); the 10506372 story referenced previously is now in position 31, 62 points, 16 comments, 5 hours ago.

natural219 11y ago
Is there seriously a list of HN flagged items somewhere? I fantasize about this often when I try to explain to friends how much quality content gets booted off of HN immediately these days. It's super heartbreaking and infuriating when they don't know what I'm talking about.
- jarek 11y ago
  Not that I'm aware of. I made that joke since it's the second submission in a week I saw sunk far below its expected score (the Homejoy debacle was the other, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10469134 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10469134)
  - natural219 11y ago
    This happens very often. It's not until you start noticing it that you start noticing it.

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MrBra 11y ago

That Terry Davis comment :)

jw989 11y ago

I really enjoyed reading this. However, I personally feel distain for the perspective of how every engineer should maintain a noble sense of worth. No matter the environmental differences of being in SF or elsewhere, people are bad at engineering wall to wall. While there are still successes at both sides of the coin. Frankly, 'Software eating the world' has nothing to do with us. It has to do with, well, the world. And my own struggle with the tech industry is how disconnected we are in the 'startup and grow' sector.

svckr 11y ago

At the end I pictured David, standing on stage, stared at by the audience. After a brief moment of silence, he drops the microphone. A loud crack echoes through the PA, followed by screeching feedback, before the audio engineer remembers to turn down the volume. Meanwhile David turns around, calmly stepping down the stage to be detained by the (Ge)StartupPolice…

manigandham 11y ago

I'm surprised this needed to be said. There are millions of small businesses (in the US) and the vast majority of them are just lifestyle businesses that bring freedom/pleasure/excitement to the owner with perhaps a possibility of earning more, but there are many that earn less than what they could make at a regular job with their same experience. This whole world domination startup thing seems to be localized to SV really. Nowhere else is this considered normal. By the way, there's a lot of confusion with just the term "startup" in general when it should really be reserved for something new (biz model, innovation, etc). If you're just doing something that's already been proven, which is completely ok, then it's just a small business.

zeckalpha 11y ago
Basecamp isn't a small business, nor does it stick to the already proven. They are constantly trying new things, and spinning out other companies when they're successful.
- manigandham 11y ago
  Perhaps it isn't now but this whole thread is mostly referring to the start of a company in which case everything is a small business. Basecamp with 50 people is still small to me, I'd say companies need at least 100 people before they can be called mid-size. Trying new things means the other spun-out companies are startups. Basecamp itself is nothing new, just different software solving the same problem as hundreds of other project management and collaboration tools.
  - zeckalpha 11y ago
    What about executing an already "proven" idea really well?
    - manigandham 11y ago
      What about it? It's already proven so still nothing new. Just new version. I think new can be summarized as a new business model, new way to monetize something, new innovation like a product or service that didnt exist before, new industries in general, etc. There can be multiple startups doing the same problem but most "startups" in SV aren't really doing anything new, just a more modern approach or revamped UX of existing solutions so I wouldn't call them startups. There's nothing wrong just being a small business that grows into a medium and large business. Not everything has to be brand new and it's not always worth it either.

S4M 11y ago

I find interesting that this article, that got 541 points (at the time I am writing this) is out of the front page already. Makes me wonder if there is the hand of people (VCs) not wanting programmers to aim for lifestyle business behind that.

Futurebot 11y ago

I like this post, but we should contextualize it properly, and look at where it doesn't work. Things have developed over the past forty years which don't allow the "start small, stay small" to always be a possibility: the increase in winner-take-all markets and the Superstar effect. We see it everywhere when it comes to today's job markets, and we also see it (and potentially worry about it being the case, and this is critical) in industries themselves. This latter belief means that if you decide to start something, you may need to consider whether you should bother at all if you aren't going to go big. Is Uber in a winner take all market? If so, they have no choice but to operate the way they do: http://www.vox.com/2014/12/4/7336433/uber-worth- http://www.vox.com/2014/12/4/7336433/uber-worth- We see it in regular job markets more generally (where we call it job polarization): http://economics.mit.edu/files/5554 http://economics.mit.edu/files/5554 We see it in "art, sports and culture" markets (where we call it the Superstar effect): http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/business/winners-take-all-but-cant-we-still-dream.html http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/23/business/winners-take-all-... http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09/winner-take-all-economics.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09/win... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/business/26excerpt.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/business/26excerpt.html We see it in newspapers: http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2010/09/10/198480/technology-and-the-top-one-percent/ http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2010/09/10/198480/technolo... We see it in attention more generally (which has second order effects, like everyone use just one or a handful of large platforms(!) and where we call it variations of "winning in the Attention Economy"): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attention_economy So the choice is sometimes (perhaps even often today) not between "get big" or "stay small/medium", but get big (where big may represent firm size, level of knowledge/skill, fame, or a number of other attributes depending on the area) or "get (almost) nothing." When the distribution of customers/eyeballs/rewards are as lopsided as they are in many areas, the only choice IS "get big or go home." More: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/12/how_technology_and_winner_take_all_markets_have_made_income_inequality_so_much_worse_.html http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2011/12/how_... http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09/winner-take-all-economics.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/09/win... http://prospect.org/article/talent-and-winner-take-all-society http://prospect.org/article/talent-and-winner-take-all-socie... I don't knock dhh, and this is one of those posts I actually want to agree with, but it doesn't neatly comport with extant realities. I think even this advice, just like the advice to "get big" needs to be taken very carefully. All of these roads entail risk (obviously), but the choice of big versus small isn't as simple as implied.

juddlyon 11y ago

This post really resonates with me. I think there is a "silent majority" type of situation going on. Most people venturing out do it for the reasons DDH states: independence, the ability to work with people of your choosing, etc. Most of us don't care about winning some ridiculous lottery where smarmy Wall Street types stakehorse tech wunderkinds. Things have a way of balancing themselves out.

namocat 11y ago

Relevant bit from the latest season of the Startup podcast: https://youtu.be/qfpdzPnElVU?t=738 https://youtu.be/qfpdzPnElVU?t=738 *spoiler alert - this is toward the end of the season, in case you'd rather listen to the podcast in order

DigitalSea 11y ago

"I wanted a life beyond work. Hobbies, family, and intellectual stimulation and pursuits beyond Hacker News, what the next-next-next JavaScript framework looks like, and how we can optimize our signup funnel." drops the microphone What a great article. I am glad someone finally said something.

nialllarkin 11y ago

Eloquently expressed pov as we've come to expect from @dhh. Legend. Now what I'd love to hear is from founders of @stripe and @intercom as they have both lived the experience of developing 'lifestyle' scale businesses before bringing unicorns to the market