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(I'm the author of the linked article.) At the margin, it's plausible that the effect you're describing is having an impact. But the real distinction the resear

(I'm the author of the linked article.) At the margin, it's plausible that the effect you're describing is having an impact. But the real distinction the researchers are making is between companies that are looking to expand and those that were always intended to be small businesses. They intentionally avoided an overdetermined model ("Companies that rhyme with 'Gamma-zon' always grow huge!") and chose attributes that more generally signal the intention to grow.

hackuser 11y ago
Thanks for joining us. What reception has the research cited received among economists? Not being one myself, I'm not sure if I'm reading something widely accepted, an innovative new idea, something untested or even fringe. I lack the ability to distinguish between those things myself. (Also, are you an economist? FiveThirtyEight's bio of you is pretty sparse.) It's great to find some sophisticated analysis and content on the web, rather than more talking heads. Thanks for writing the article!
- bencasselman 11y ago
  I'm a journalist, not an economist, although these days my role is probably a bit in between the two. (I have the luxury of digging a lot deeper than your typical online journalist.) This research is still new, so there's no clear consensus yet. But so far the reception has been positive. The paper tries to get at a core question that's bedeviled economics recently: How is it possible that startups could be declining, given everything happening in SV? This is probably the most sophisticated answer so far. But it doesn't mean it's 100% correct.
Eridrus 11y ago
There seems to be a gap between your rhetoric around "The next Amazon" and the actual paper. In particular, the definition of success (selling for more than $10m) seems a bit low for VC-backed startup companies and is a huge gap between that and Amazon-sized economy changing companies. Maybe I'm stuck in the HN bubble, but $10m seems like a small amount for anyone who has taken post-seed funding, and those activities (registering in delaware, filing for patents, etc) seem totally expected if you're taking funding. I guess the question I have is: are there a large chunk of non-venture funded companies who fit their criteria? Do those have any indication of leading to huge growth? If not, then these indicators seem to be just another way of finding those companies that took funding.

hackuser 11y ago

Thanks for joining us. What reception has the research cited received among economists? Not being one myself, I'm not sure if I'm reading something widely accepted, an innovative new idea, something untested or even fringe. I lack the ability to distinguish between those things myself. (Also, are you an economist? FiveThirtyEight's bio of you is pretty sparse.) It's great to find some sophisticated analysis and content on the web, rather than more talking heads. Thanks for writing the article!

bencasselman 11y ago
I'm a journalist, not an economist, although these days my role is probably a bit in between the two. (I have the luxury of digging a lot deeper than your typical online journalist.) This research is still new, so there's no clear consensus yet. But so far the reception has been positive. The paper tries to get at a core question that's bedeviled economics recently: How is it possible that startups could be declining, given everything happening in SV? This is probably the most sophisticated answer so far. But it doesn't mean it's 100% correct.

Eridrus 11y ago

There seems to be a gap between your rhetoric around "The next Amazon" and the actual paper. In particular, the definition of success (selling for more than $10m) seems a bit low for VC-backed startup companies and is a huge gap between that and Amazon-sized economy changing companies. Maybe I'm stuck in the HN bubble, but $10m seems like a small amount for anyone who has taken post-seed funding, and those activities (registering in delaware, filing for patents, etc) seem totally expected if you're taking funding. I guess the question I have is: are there a large chunk of non-venture funded companies who fit their criteria? Do those have any indication of leading to huge growth? If not, then these indicators seem to be just another way of finding those companies that took funding.