7 ms·

I wouldn’t start one company. I would take a leaf out of Y Combinator’s book, and start funding lots a small startups, as well as advising them. I’d would attem

I wouldn’t start one company. I would take a leaf out of Y Combinator’s book, and start funding lots a small startups, as well as advising them. I’d would attempt at investing in such a way that I create an ecosystem of companies that can learn from each other and support each other. I’d focus on climate resilience. Lots of current practices will be disrupted by changes we are already seeing. Easy? Probably not, but I think it could work well.

johannes1234321 7y ago
If Y Combiantor is doing that already why should Google? They can observe the development and then buy the winner (with a premium) If Google/Alphabet does too many investments which fail shareholders will cry.
nostrademons 7y ago
Google's done that repeatedly with Google Labs, GMail Labs, Google X, Area 120, department-internal projects like Search Demo Days, 20% time, Google Ventures, giving high-performing employees a charter to work on whatever they want for a couple quarters, etc. It never seems to work, and it never seems to work for the reasons outlined in The Innovator's Dilemma. Big companies are held hostage by their customers. A new company needs to a.) find new customers b.) be hungry and c.) have total freedom to configure the market around oneself. None of these exist within the cushy environment of a big company - a.) is contradictory with maintaining Google's brand image, b.) is contradictory with continuing to pay the people involved in these efforts, and c.) is contradictory with Google getting first dibs on the spoils of these efforts.
- petra 7y ago
  Google seem to solve that by spinning-out while keeping significant(probably) equity. What's wrong with that ?
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  I thought that was what the creation of Alphabet was meant to solve.
scarface74 7y ago
I wouldn’t start one company. I would take a leaf out of Y Combinator’s book, and start funding lots a small startups, as well as advising them There are only two YC companies that have gone public and both of those are still losing money -- PagerDuty and Dropbox and as far as I know, none have reached profitability.
- chrischen 7y ago
  Profitability=tax
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Are you really saying that these companies are losing money so they don't have to pay taxes?
    - chrischen 7y ago
      Yes most companies do that on the books, including movie productions, Amazon, etc. It’s not because their business model still doesn’t work, it’s because the point of corporate income tax is to make sure the corporation doesn’t hoard money and instead reinjects it into business expenses such as payroll.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        I realize that, but the companies I’m referring to - the VC backend companies and the YC backed public companies aren’t cash flow positive.
        chrischen 7y ago
        Yes but my point is that if they're reporting profits it'd mean they'd have run out of things to spend money on (R&D, employees, product dev, etc). The whole point of VC funding is that so much money will go towards product dev that they'd need external funding.

johannes1234321 7y ago

If Y Combiantor is doing that already why should Google? They can observe the development and then buy the winner (with a premium) If Google/Alphabet does too many investments which fail shareholders will cry.

nostrademons 7y ago

Google's done that repeatedly with Google Labs, GMail Labs, Google X, Area 120, department-internal projects like Search Demo Days, 20% time, Google Ventures, giving high-performing employees a charter to work on whatever they want for a couple quarters, etc. It never seems to work, and it never seems to work for the reasons outlined in The Innovator's Dilemma. Big companies are held hostage by their customers. A new company needs to a.) find new customers b.) be hungry and c.) have total freedom to configure the market around oneself. None of these exist within the cushy environment of a big company - a.) is contradictory with maintaining Google's brand image, b.) is contradictory with continuing to pay the people involved in these efforts, and c.) is contradictory with Google getting first dibs on the spoils of these efforts.

petra 7y ago
Google seem to solve that by spinning-out while keeping significant(probably) equity. What's wrong with that ?
bryanrasmussen 7y ago
I thought that was what the creation of Alphabet was meant to solve.

scarface74 7y ago

I wouldn’t start one company. I would take a leaf out of Y Combinator’s book, and start funding lots a small startups, as well as advising them There are only two YC companies that have gone public and both of those are still losing money -- PagerDuty and Dropbox and as far as I know, none have reached profitability.

chrischen 7y ago
Profitability=tax
- scarface74 7y ago
  Are you really saying that these companies are losing money so they don't have to pay taxes?
  - chrischen 7y ago
    Yes most companies do that on the books, including movie productions, Amazon, etc. It’s not because their business model still doesn’t work, it’s because the point of corporate income tax is to make sure the corporation doesn’t hoard money and instead reinjects it into business expenses such as payroll.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      I realize that, but the companies I’m referring to - the VC backend companies and the YC backed public companies aren’t cash flow positive.
      - chrischen 7y ago
        Yes but my point is that if they're reporting profits it'd mean they'd have run out of things to spend money on (R&D, employees, product dev, etc). The whole point of VC funding is that so much money will go towards product dev that they'd need external funding.