3 ms·

I don't find it baffling. You flatly cannot build a company without capital. On the other hand, you might be able to build a company by treating good employee

I don't find it baffling. You flatly cannot build a company without capital. On the other hand, you might be able to build a company by treating good employees badly, because the employees are either a little naive or they really do value working at your cool startup over money. You might also be able to simply build a reasonably successful company with not very good employees (in fact this is most companies)

cookiecaper 10y ago
Lots of companies start with minimal capital infusions. The VC roulette is not the way that sustainable companies have been built, historically speaking. Atlassian is a recent example of a bootstrapped tech company that IPO'd. I personally believe that in a fair world, the people actually producing the value would be allowed to collect most of it, and the people who grease the wheels would collect an appropriate gratuity. However, I acknowledge that we instead live in a world where the people with cash set the rules, and their interest is in preserving and growing their power (which means keeping themselves much richer than everyone else).
- jartelt 10y ago
  Considering VC only really started in 1970s, it is easy to say that it's not the way companies have been built historically. That said, Atlassian is more an exception than the norm. Most really big, successful tech companies took VC or PE money during their history to help them grow (Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Cisco, Apple, Microsoft, etc.).
billmalarky 10y ago
>You flatly cannot build a company without capital. Many successful companies are bootstrapped.
- mjolk 10y ago
  > Many successful companies are bootstrapped. I'm bootstrapping now and I'd generally agree with the statement you quoted. It's expensive and near impossible to find cofounders/enough-"bootstrapped"-help to make building a tech company from scratch feasible, never mind go to open market and get enough customers for the business to be worth running. A "small" 250k check would solve almost all of my issues right now.
st3v3r 10y ago
So the conclusion is that the people who actually build the thing don't matter, so the company should feel free to fuck them at will. So why should anyone ever work at a startup that isn't guaranteeing them market rate compensation? And don't say the "experience", because that can be gotten anywhere else.

cookiecaper 10y ago

Lots of companies start with minimal capital infusions. The VC roulette is not the way that sustainable companies have been built, historically speaking. Atlassian is a recent example of a bootstrapped tech company that IPO'd. I personally believe that in a fair world, the people actually producing the value would be allowed to collect most of it, and the people who grease the wheels would collect an appropriate gratuity. However, I acknowledge that we instead live in a world where the people with cash set the rules, and their interest is in preserving and growing their power (which means keeping themselves much richer than everyone else).

jartelt 10y ago
Considering VC only really started in 1970s, it is easy to say that it's not the way companies have been built historically. That said, Atlassian is more an exception than the norm. Most really big, successful tech companies took VC or PE money during their history to help them grow (Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Cisco, Apple, Microsoft, etc.).

billmalarky 10y ago

>You flatly cannot build a company without capital. Many successful companies are bootstrapped.

mjolk 10y ago
> Many successful companies are bootstrapped. I'm bootstrapping now and I'd generally agree with the statement you quoted. It's expensive and near impossible to find cofounders/enough-"bootstrapped"-help to make building a tech company from scratch feasible, never mind go to open market and get enough customers for the business to be worth running. A "small" 250k check would solve almost all of my issues right now.

st3v3r 10y ago

So the conclusion is that the people who actually build the thing don't matter, so the company should feel free to fuck them at will. So why should anyone ever work at a startup that isn't guaranteeing them market rate compensation? And don't say the "experience", because that can be gotten anywhere else.