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I was surprised that article didn't trigger a bigger response on HN. It is a little over the top, but it leaves a lot to think about. The Unicorn, disruption PR

I was surprised that article didn't trigger a bigger response on HN. It is a little over the top, but it leaves a lot to think about. The Unicorn, disruption PR wheel has drowned out the virtues and benefits of other forms of entrepreneurship.

nl 11y ago
For me personally I tend to ignore most of what DHH writes. He has an unfortunate tendency to see the way that he was successful as the only way to be successful, and seems to lack the ability to benefits in other ways of doing things. We used to see this in PG's writings too: back before he started YC he appeared to be utterly convinced that it was Lisp that made his company successful. After he started YC and he saw a lot more his writing became a lot stronger IMO. Regarding DHH, I'll just point at [1], with the comment that Facebook made $891 profit last quarter. It's also currently valued at ~$300B. [1] https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2585-facebook-is-not-worth-33000000000 https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2585-facebook-is-not-worth-33...
- tdicola 11y ago
  > Regarding DHH, I'll just point at [1], with the comment that Facebook made $891 profit last quarter. It's also currently valued at ~$300B. > [1] https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2585-facebook-is-not-worth-33.. https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2585-facebook-is-not-worth-33.... To be fair that blog post was written in 2010 when Facebook was still a private company and had nowhere near the level of advertising, reach, etc. that it has today. In particular they had barely scratched the surface of mobile and were only making money off Farmville and other ephemeral apps.
  - nl 11y ago
    That's kind of the point!! The trajectory was clear enough that all those investors DHH called "star struck" put money in. To quote him: Irrational investor exuberance indeed. I think it would be more sensible to class them as "investors who had more foresight than DHH". He berated them for being dumb. Since we can now see that they weren't dumb at all we should consider DHH's insights questionable.
    - dreamdu5t 11y ago
      They were still dumb, they just got lucky. When you have enough money to throw shit and see what sticks, you don't need to be smart and pick winners. That's the whole crux of why people don't respect VC.
      - nl 11y ago
        Lucky? They were desperately buying anything they could on the secondary markets. That isn't luck, it's seeing an opportunity. It's like Pinterest 2 or 3 years ago (say around the time of the 27M A16Z B round). Putting as much money into that as you could isn't being lucky, it's seeing an opportunity. Their 2014 and 2015 rounds are basically just ways to print money. That's the whole crux of why people don't respect VC. Um. Some people don't respect some VCs. I don't agree with everything Marc Andreessen says, but I'd be pretty silly if I didn't respect his opinion on technology.
  - oldmanjay 11y ago
    To my mind, this mainly reinforces that ample success does not lend one's opinions any credence. Fortunately, there aren't many people relying on DHH for market analysis. It's kind of like how no one really needs to hear my opinions on politics just because I'm a championship level drinker (but I'll give them anyway).

nl 11y ago

For me personally I tend to ignore most of what DHH writes. He has an unfortunate tendency to see the way that he was successful as the only way to be successful, and seems to lack the ability to benefits in other ways of doing things. We used to see this in PG's writings too: back before he started YC he appeared to be utterly convinced that it was Lisp that made his company successful. After he started YC and he saw a lot more his writing became a lot stronger IMO. Regarding DHH, I'll just point at [1], with the comment that Facebook made $891 profit last quarter. It's also currently valued at ~$300B. [1] https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2585-facebook-is-not-worth-33000000000 https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2585-facebook-is-not-worth-33...

tdicola 11y ago
> Regarding DHH, I'll just point at [1], with the comment that Facebook made $891 profit last quarter. It's also currently valued at ~$300B. > [1] https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2585-facebook-is-not-worth-33.. https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2585-facebook-is-not-worth-33.... To be fair that blog post was written in 2010 when Facebook was still a private company and had nowhere near the level of advertising, reach, etc. that it has today. In particular they had barely scratched the surface of mobile and were only making money off Farmville and other ephemeral apps.
- nl 11y ago
  That's kind of the point!! The trajectory was clear enough that all those investors DHH called "star struck" put money in. To quote him: Irrational investor exuberance indeed. I think it would be more sensible to class them as "investors who had more foresight than DHH". He berated them for being dumb. Since we can now see that they weren't dumb at all we should consider DHH's insights questionable.
  - dreamdu5t 11y ago
    They were still dumb, they just got lucky. When you have enough money to throw shit and see what sticks, you don't need to be smart and pick winners. That's the whole crux of why people don't respect VC.
    - nl 11y ago
      Lucky? They were desperately buying anything they could on the secondary markets. That isn't luck, it's seeing an opportunity. It's like Pinterest 2 or 3 years ago (say around the time of the 27M A16Z B round). Putting as much money into that as you could isn't being lucky, it's seeing an opportunity. Their 2014 and 2015 rounds are basically just ways to print money. That's the whole crux of why people don't respect VC. Um. Some people don't respect some VCs. I don't agree with everything Marc Andreessen says, but I'd be pretty silly if I didn't respect his opinion on technology.
- oldmanjay 11y ago
  To my mind, this mainly reinforces that ample success does not lend one's opinions any credence. Fortunately, there aren't many people relying on DHH for market analysis. It's kind of like how no one really needs to hear my opinions on politics just because I'm a championship level drinker (but I'll give them anyway).