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Ask HN: Debunking the SV silly-money-for-silly-ideas myth
As a middle aged tech guy, I am sometimes asked by younger fellows why SV uses so much money for b2c ideas that would be deemed spent, foolish or unfeasible elsewhere. In other words, how can you get running big funds for another basic SaaS or copycat app or mechanical IoT equipment. The latest source for discussion was Juicero, something a local team over here, out of the SV, was thinking of a few years ago and had to drop because of absolutely no traction. My collaborative answer is it is something related with venture capital placing speculative bets in the hope of winning the unicorn lottery, sometimes independent of the substantial merit of the underlying project. I realise it is a bit consolatory and no one is satisfied. Better answers then?
- RodericDay 10y agoHere's Matt Bruenig for you: > "The unwritten story of the Juicero debacle is that high income inequality causes capital to be misallocated towards luxury production."
- itamarst 10y agoIt doesn't seem like a myth to me. Vast amounts of money being spent on stupid consumerism, selling user information to the highest bidder, ADS ADS ADS ADS, businesses that are so good at losing money they'd do better if they literally burned piles of cash every day...