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No, I mean just Google. Apple in my mind = present an OS GUI according to the needs of the human brain. A lot more than 6 people were/are/will be interested i

by NSX2 19y ago

No, I mean just Google. Apple in my mind = present an OS GUI according to the needs of the human brain. A lot more than 6 people were/are/will be interested in that. Microsoft = make big business computer functions possible on the home computer (at least originally). Apparently more than 6 people were interested in that. Yahoo's proposition originally = the world wibe web is taking off exponentially and you need some sort of list or something to keep track of all the interesting stuff that keeps popping up. Again, more than 6 people were/are interested in that. So, only Google. And truth be said, even Google doesn't count that much since from my understanding Google was just living off of angel/VC funding for a few years until a biz-dev V.P. came up with the idea to tie search results to paid advertising as text on the side. Without what became adwords, Google would have just stayed an interesting technical solution. Had that V.P. kept his mouth shut and left, secured VC backing based on his cred as an exec in a KP/Seq-backed venture and started his own search engine based on his adwords idea, I suspect he'd be the billionaire and "google" would have turned out to be a startup his subesquent company bought and absorbed.

aneesh 19y ago
Microsoft is actually more B2B than B2C. And yeah, Yahoo! was just making a list of links - hardly a challenging technical problem, but people wanted it.
- NSX2 19y ago
  That's my point exactly. They focused on what people wanted more than a challenging technical problem. That makes them the exception to most programmers I've come across who are fascinated with technical challenges so obscure the resolution of which nobody cares about. In academia, that's respectable and commendable. In business ... nobody cares.
  - wumi 19y ago
    "But most programmers, if they're anything like the ones I've come across, would consider that "below them" and instead favor a startup working on some obscure problem that 6 people on the planet could understand and appreciate." Do you realize you're arguing with yourself? The 6 people argument was presented by you, and you're challenging other people based on that.
    - NSX2 19y ago
      Not sure what you mean. I'm not posting this as an "argument with myself" as you put it. The poster above said that Yahoo wasn't an interesting technical challenge, just a useful approach to a common problem. Then I just acknowledged that. The "argument" is either based on a misunderstading of the 2 posts or a projection of your own self-debating thinking process.
pg 19y ago
No, I mean just Google. Apple in my mind... I'm talking about the actual historical Apple, not the one in your mind. It happened because Steve Wozniak made himself a computer. http://www.foundersatwork.com/steve-wozniak.html http://www.foundersatwork.com/steve-wozniak.html Microsoft, likewise, began not with "business computer functions" but with a Basic interpreter for the Altair. Yahoo literally grew out of the list of web sites Jerry and Filo compiled for their own use. I recommend you read Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work, which is specifically about this subject: what actually happened when famous startups were started? It's a common mistake to underestimate the difference between how a startup began and what it later became.
- NSX2 19y ago
  Okay, notice I'm saying "great business", not "startup." There are millions of "startups" working on cool technical challenges, of which almost none will become great businesses. When all those things you described were happening, almost nobody cared = no business. When they turned to meet needs of a much broader audience then the few technical people who were interested in such a narrow range of issues, they took off as businesses. In my mind, "startup" does not equal a business. Business means lots of people pay you money for selling them your thing. So to a limited extent, for example, Woz had a "business" selling computers through ads to computer enthusiasts in the back fo Scientific American or whatever. But that was nowhere near as successful a business as when Jobs visited PARC and realized the research they were doing on GUIs based on the human mind could be significant for a lot of people. The Yahoo folks may have started with a list specific to their interests, and students may have found it cool, but that was not a business. It became a business when they broadened to general idea of an organized list to the needs of a larger audience. I've come across quite a few programmers over the last year who turned me down because they said they were busy working on their own startups, all of which were based on solving a problem only they seemed to care about. They incorporated, had a "company", etc. But that doesn't equal business. Business means people pay you money. For that to happen you have to broaden your considerations to what those people want, not what you care to/can build. I won't, nor will anybody pay any of your startups a penny because somebody wrote really cool code that everyone on Hacker News agrees is awesome. But I'll pay you money if your code solves my needs. You don't care to solve my needs? Fine. You may have a technically awesome thing. I won't pay you for it, though. And neither will anyone else.
paul 19y ago
Your understanding of Google is not at all accurate.
- davidw 19y ago
  .oO(who the heck voted that down?! )
- deleted 19y ago
  [deleted]
- NSX2 19y ago
  My understanding of Google may not be accurate, but my understanding of why people hand their money over to Google is probably as accurate as it is possible to be. Misunderstandings of any details you have in mind aside, in general Google too fits into the general idea: before Google started thinking about how to channel its technology to meet the needs of people with money, it was an interesting startup, but not a great business. The second it took the needs of customers with money into account, then those people handed over their money and that made Google a great business. My point is that in my mind there is a simple distinction that most startups seem to either accidentally or purposely ignore: startup = bunch of guys working on a cool technical thing / business = bunch of guys working on a thing that makes life better for paying customers. Having not seen Benny Hill since childhood, I assumed that the reason people were starting startups were to transition to businesses which made life better for paying customers. Apparently I was wrong. People here, for the most part, as well as just about every programmer I've run into over the last year or so trying to start my own thing, seem to be more interested in starting a startup so they could post "Hey guys, check out my cool thing" type of posts. I don't know where I'm going wrong here, but unless somebody finds a way to transform positive feedback from Hacker News into cold hard cash, that's not a business. At least not IMHO. But judging by the feedback I get on other posts, not too many people seem to care about starting a business, just starting "startups" where "startup" = somebody pays me money to sit around writing code and drinking Mountain Dew. I can't see how that's different from a job where you happen to be working on a cool project.
- NSX2 19y ago
  On another note, I just looked at your profile and read some of your articles. Why take issues with "my understanding of Google" when it turns out I'm making a similar point to what you wrote about in terms of being humble enough to put pride aside and find out what people actually want/need/will pay for rather assuming for them only to find out that nobody cares about the brilliant programming of an idea nobody but the programmer appreciates? Isn't that what you yourself said in one of your posts on your blog, or am I misunderstanding your position?

by NSX2 19y ago

aneesh 19y ago

Microsoft is actually more B2B than B2C. And yeah, Yahoo! was just making a list of links - hardly a challenging technical problem, but people wanted it.

NSX2 19y ago
That's my point exactly. They focused on what people wanted more than a challenging technical problem. That makes them the exception to most programmers I've come across who are fascinated with technical challenges so obscure the resolution of which nobody cares about. In academia, that's respectable and commendable. In business ... nobody cares.
- wumi 19y ago
  "But most programmers, if they're anything like the ones I've come across, would consider that "below them" and instead favor a startup working on some obscure problem that 6 people on the planet could understand and appreciate." Do you realize you're arguing with yourself? The 6 people argument was presented by you, and you're challenging other people based on that.
  - NSX2 19y ago
    Not sure what you mean. I'm not posting this as an "argument with myself" as you put it. The poster above said that Yahoo wasn't an interesting technical challenge, just a useful approach to a common problem. Then I just acknowledged that. The "argument" is either based on a misunderstading of the 2 posts or a projection of your own self-debating thinking process.

pg 19y ago

No, I mean just Google. Apple in my mind... I'm talking about the actual historical Apple, not the one in your mind. It happened because Steve Wozniak made himself a computer. http://www.foundersatwork.com/steve-wozniak.html http://www.foundersatwork.com/steve-wozniak.html Microsoft, likewise, began not with "business computer functions" but with a Basic interpreter for the Altair. Yahoo literally grew out of the list of web sites Jerry and Filo compiled for their own use. I recommend you read Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work, which is specifically about this subject: what actually happened when famous startups were started? It's a common mistake to underestimate the difference between how a startup began and what it later became.

NSX2 19y ago
Okay, notice I'm saying "great business", not "startup." There are millions of "startups" working on cool technical challenges, of which almost none will become great businesses. When all those things you described were happening, almost nobody cared = no business. When they turned to meet needs of a much broader audience then the few technical people who were interested in such a narrow range of issues, they took off as businesses. In my mind, "startup" does not equal a business. Business means lots of people pay you money for selling them your thing. So to a limited extent, for example, Woz had a "business" selling computers through ads to computer enthusiasts in the back fo Scientific American or whatever. But that was nowhere near as successful a business as when Jobs visited PARC and realized the research they were doing on GUIs based on the human mind could be significant for a lot of people. The Yahoo folks may have started with a list specific to their interests, and students may have found it cool, but that was not a business. It became a business when they broadened to general idea of an organized list to the needs of a larger audience. I've come across quite a few programmers over the last year who turned me down because they said they were busy working on their own startups, all of which were based on solving a problem only they seemed to care about. They incorporated, had a "company", etc. But that doesn't equal business. Business means people pay you money. For that to happen you have to broaden your considerations to what those people want, not what you care to/can build. I won't, nor will anybody pay any of your startups a penny because somebody wrote really cool code that everyone on Hacker News agrees is awesome. But I'll pay you money if your code solves my needs. You don't care to solve my needs? Fine. You may have a technically awesome thing. I won't pay you for it, though. And neither will anyone else.

paul 19y ago

Your understanding of Google is not at all accurate.

davidw 19y ago
.oO(who the heck voted that down?! )
deleted 19y ago
[deleted]
NSX2 19y ago
My understanding of Google may not be accurate, but my understanding of why people hand their money over to Google is probably as accurate as it is possible to be. Misunderstandings of any details you have in mind aside, in general Google too fits into the general idea: before Google started thinking about how to channel its technology to meet the needs of people with money, it was an interesting startup, but not a great business. The second it took the needs of customers with money into account, then those people handed over their money and that made Google a great business. My point is that in my mind there is a simple distinction that most startups seem to either accidentally or purposely ignore: startup = bunch of guys working on a cool technical thing / business = bunch of guys working on a thing that makes life better for paying customers. Having not seen Benny Hill since childhood, I assumed that the reason people were starting startups were to transition to businesses which made life better for paying customers. Apparently I was wrong. People here, for the most part, as well as just about every programmer I've run into over the last year or so trying to start my own thing, seem to be more interested in starting a startup so they could post "Hey guys, check out my cool thing" type of posts. I don't know where I'm going wrong here, but unless somebody finds a way to transform positive feedback from Hacker News into cold hard cash, that's not a business. At least not IMHO. But judging by the feedback I get on other posts, not too many people seem to care about starting a business, just starting "startups" where "startup" = somebody pays me money to sit around writing code and drinking Mountain Dew. I can't see how that's different from a job where you happen to be working on a cool project.
NSX2 19y ago
On another note, I just looked at your profile and read some of your articles. Why take issues with "my understanding of Google" when it turns out I'm making a similar point to what you wrote about in terms of being humble enough to put pride aside and find out what people actually want/need/will pay for rather assuming for them only to find out that nobody cares about the brilliant programming of an idea nobody but the programmer appreciates? Isn't that what you yourself said in one of your posts on your blog, or am I misunderstanding your position?