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I hope it doesn't. "Finances first everywhere" is dumb in technology for the same reason it's dumb in research -- you get predictable incremental improvements r

I hope it doesn't. "Finances first everywhere" is dumb in technology for the same reason it's dumb in research -- you get predictable incremental improvements rather than quantum leaps. We get what we pay for, and it absolutely makes sense to invest into curiosity-driven technological research. People want "finances first" investment, but then complain that all we get is a bunch of sharing economy clones. If you want something other than doordash, uber, airbnb, instacart, caviar, lyft, etc. you have to be prepared to invest into ideas that have no financial story in the short term.

ThomPete 9y ago
I am unconvinced about that argument but I am willing be convinced. Can you give some examples of quantum leap companies? I don't see why you would need SV money to make quantum leaps as a company or why that's important. Edit: I can see from the responses that there is some confusion. I am of course not talking about companies who do some sort of research based incubation. I am talking about the host of companies who do no research or innovation and simply use VC money to get a team of the ground.
- lwansbrough 9y ago
  I suppose Magic Leap is a good example. No one would buy a silly incremental AR headset, but they will probably buy whatever Magic Leap is working on (provided it is as futuristic as advertised.)
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    I have my doubts they will ever deliver anything. More likely they have sucked up a lot of investment other companies would have put to better use.
    - JibJabLab 9y ago
      Might be hard to pull off considering they've done live demos to certain investors.
      - joefourier 9y ago
        With a refrigerator sized device that they have been unable to miniaturize, and a glass-sized product that is not really any better than Hololens or Meta.
  - notyourday 9y ago
    Vapor Ware is always a great example.
- askafriend 9y ago
  You don't need to look much further than the story of Google. Search was thought to be a "solved problem" and many at the time thought that there was zero money in search. Plus it was an incredibly saturated market with existing providers. If you took the finances first approach, you would have missed Google. Another good one is AirBnB. Staying in other people's homes was a pretty ridiculous idea at the time. Who would want to stay in a stranger's home? How does a company like that make any money? It's more obvious today but that capital had to be invested in order to open up the market for AirBnB to come in underneath the hotels and cement itself. If you took the finances first approach, you would have missed AirBnB. Yes, my examples are cherry-picked (I know someone is going to bring this up). But you asked for examples and here they are :)
  - ThomPete 9y ago
    I built an Airbnb ish kind of product back in the 90'ies with a friend of mine, he even wrote his thesis about it. I got the idea because some stranger on ICQ from Japan asked me if he and his girlfriend could live with me in Copenhagen for a couple of weeks in exchange for me being able to live with them if I ever came to Japan. The service was called IKIKI (apparently meaning visiting each other and also at the same time a palindrome) However, we ran into a lot of problems with generally getting people to trust each other. I later ended up doing design for a couple of other airbnb ish companies amongst others vacationvalley.com owned by a very young swedish entrepreneur called Martin Schaedel who unfortunately died very early in a plane accident. http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/the-internet-says-goodbye-to-a-friend-martin-schaedel http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/the-internet-says-good... So I have had my experience with the Airbnb business model and never missed that. It was a timing question not a funding question. It is not a good example as that had more to do with market adaption of social networks and mobile phones plus payment services than product innovation.
    - zaptheimpaler 9y ago
      >that had more to do with market adaption of social networks and mobile phones plus payment services than product innovation Not parent, but this seems to be key. Many say tech will be forever as innovative as it has been in past 10-15 years, but now it seems that all of that has simply been the effect of widespread adoption of the internet & smartphones, rebuilding parts of the economy on top it, and things are reaching saturation. Until there is another major breakthrough like that at the hardware level, we will see far less growth and unicorns.
- kayhi 9y ago
  A number of their examples are toe sided market places where rapid expansion can create a competitive advantage. Uber even with all their funding still had to battle local clones that emerged especially internationally. Uber is perhaps a quantum leap in that many people can now work on demand and make money off one of their existing assets (also like Airbnb).
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    And they still have no idea how to be a sustainable company.
- anandkulkarni 9y ago
  DeepMind developed a number of core research innovations in deep learning that I'd consider quantum leaps, prior to their acquisition by Google. ie: https://deepmind.com/research/publications/neural-turing-machines/ https://deepmind.com/research/publications/neural-turing-mac...
watwut 9y ago
Ultimately, investors want money back and them some. Or at least they should want it, definitely those who don't play with retirement and what not funds money instead of their own. Moreover, tons of money being poured into financially bad shops kills real market and skews incentives. Companies that could be able to make profit die. Meanwhile, startups are motivated to target quick growth instead of actual profit - until bubble breaks and everyone is effed for no fault of their own.

ThomPete 9y ago

I am unconvinced about that argument but I am willing be convinced. Can you give some examples of quantum leap companies? I don't see why you would need SV money to make quantum leaps as a company or why that's important. Edit: I can see from the responses that there is some confusion. I am of course not talking about companies who do some sort of research based incubation. I am talking about the host of companies who do no research or innovation and simply use VC money to get a team of the ground.

lwansbrough 9y ago
I suppose Magic Leap is a good example. No one would buy a silly incremental AR headset, but they will probably buy whatever Magic Leap is working on (provided it is as futuristic as advertised.)
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  I have my doubts they will ever deliver anything. More likely they have sucked up a lot of investment other companies would have put to better use.
  - JibJabLab 9y ago
    Might be hard to pull off considering they've done live demos to certain investors.
    - joefourier 9y ago
      With a refrigerator sized device that they have been unable to miniaturize, and a glass-sized product that is not really any better than Hololens or Meta.
- notyourday 9y ago
  Vapor Ware is always a great example.
askafriend 9y ago
You don't need to look much further than the story of Google. Search was thought to be a "solved problem" and many at the time thought that there was zero money in search. Plus it was an incredibly saturated market with existing providers. If you took the finances first approach, you would have missed Google. Another good one is AirBnB. Staying in other people's homes was a pretty ridiculous idea at the time. Who would want to stay in a stranger's home? How does a company like that make any money? It's more obvious today but that capital had to be invested in order to open up the market for AirBnB to come in underneath the hotels and cement itself. If you took the finances first approach, you would have missed AirBnB. Yes, my examples are cherry-picked (I know someone is going to bring this up). But you asked for examples and here they are :)
- ThomPete 9y ago
  I built an Airbnb ish kind of product back in the 90'ies with a friend of mine, he even wrote his thesis about it. I got the idea because some stranger on ICQ from Japan asked me if he and his girlfriend could live with me in Copenhagen for a couple of weeks in exchange for me being able to live with them if I ever came to Japan. The service was called IKIKI (apparently meaning visiting each other and also at the same time a palindrome) However, we ran into a lot of problems with generally getting people to trust each other. I later ended up doing design for a couple of other airbnb ish companies amongst others vacationvalley.com owned by a very young swedish entrepreneur called Martin Schaedel who unfortunately died very early in a plane accident. http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/the-internet-says-goodbye-to-a-friend-martin-schaedel http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/the-internet-says-good... So I have had my experience with the Airbnb business model and never missed that. It was a timing question not a funding question. It is not a good example as that had more to do with market adaption of social networks and mobile phones plus payment services than product innovation.
  - zaptheimpaler 9y ago
    >that had more to do with market adaption of social networks and mobile phones plus payment services than product innovation Not parent, but this seems to be key. Many say tech will be forever as innovative as it has been in past 10-15 years, but now it seems that all of that has simply been the effect of widespread adoption of the internet & smartphones, rebuilding parts of the economy on top it, and things are reaching saturation. Until there is another major breakthrough like that at the hardware level, we will see far less growth and unicorns.
kayhi 9y ago
A number of their examples are toe sided market places where rapid expansion can create a competitive advantage. Uber even with all their funding still had to battle local clones that emerged especially internationally. Uber is perhaps a quantum leap in that many people can now work on demand and make money off one of their existing assets (also like Airbnb).
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  And they still have no idea how to be a sustainable company.
anandkulkarni 9y ago
DeepMind developed a number of core research innovations in deep learning that I'd consider quantum leaps, prior to their acquisition by Google. ie: https://deepmind.com/research/publications/neural-turing-machines/ https://deepmind.com/research/publications/neural-turing-mac...

watwut 9y ago

Ultimately, investors want money back and them some. Or at least they should want it, definitely those who don't play with retirement and what not funds money instead of their own. Moreover, tons of money being poured into financially bad shops kills real market and skews incentives. Companies that could be able to make profit die. Meanwhile, startups are motivated to target quick growth instead of actual profit - until bubble breaks and everyone is effed for no fault of their own.