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What frustrates me to no end is that instead of those billions going towards capital intensive startups that are actual moonshots, it was funneled into some bul

What frustrates me to no end is that instead of those billions going towards capital intensive startups that are actual moonshots, it was funneled into some bullshit real estate ponzi scheme. There are so many big problems that need solving, and also require large up front capital to do so. Think vertically integrated healthcare/hospital systems that remove insurance from the equation, nuclear fusion, new models for higher education, cancer treatments, etc. Think of how many SpaceX and Tesla-esque startups didn't get off the ground because that money went to a damn coworking space company. Come on.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Funny you write this comment, as I thought about exactly this the other day while out for a jog. These aren't VC problems, these are politics problems ("Think vertically integrated healthcare/hospital systems that remove insurance from the equation [1], nuclear fusion [2], new models for higher education [3], cancer treatments [4], etc."). I want my government funding these ideas, not some VC partner you have to pander to. Have a moonshot idea? DARPA/ARPA-E Tesla and SpaceX weren't government funded per se (kudos Elon), but they took advantage of US government subsidies/financing (Tesla) and NASA contracts (SpaceX), which I take no issue with. But those are the exceptions, not the rule. [1] Single payer Medicare For All, with a HHS (Health & Human Services) central EHR/EMR system [2] US ITER [3] Khan Academy, Coursea, Udemy (non-profits, not gov) [4] US NIH (who provided the vast majority of the resources researching treatments for HIV/AIDS)
- KoftaBob 7y ago
  and it's great to encourage government initiatives to tackle those problems, but I'm not implying private startups should replace those initiatives, but rather complement them. The mighty NASA and Russia's space program hadn't (and still haven't) figured out how to build reusable self-landing rockets (for a # of reasons), and yet a company with startup-level resources like SpaceX did. Part of it is because startups have to succeed at their goal, or they die. Government entities don't die if they don't pull off medicare for all. In addition, startups don't have the slow and bulky bureaucracy of government in their way. Think of what those advantages can bring about in healthcare, energy, and other moonshot fields, if they just had the funding. Hence why it's so important for big funds like SoftBank to invest in those, not nonsense startups with nothing more than a cult leader.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    You're not arguing for arrangement of government vs startups though, you're arguing for passion, determination, fortitude, and grit (and domain expertise, of course). The organizational structure (private vs public) is less important. Government can operate as efficiently as some of the leanest, most nimble startups, and private companies can operate as poorly as the worst run parts of government. I too can provide examples of private companies that are enormous, dysfunctional, and yet still lumber on (Boeing) similarly to how some parts of government have operated. The private sector is not a silver bullet for innovation and efficiency. Regarding SpaceX, Elon Musk is a cult leader, and rightly so; he gets shit done (I have previously said he is our least terrible billionaire). Hire more people into government who get shit done, and get out of their way (see: US Digital Service/18F, for example). Regarding bureaucracy, some amount of regulation is beneficial. "Most fast, break things" gets old when you're committing fraud like Theranos. If one desires a little less bureaucracy, that is what incubators like DARPA are for. Think of what horrors startups would foist upon us chasing valuations and profits without any regulation whatsoever. Disclaimer: I am biased. I don't believe in American Exceptionalism, nor rugged individualism.
- dr_dshiv 7y ago
  The problem is that we don't believe in government. BTW, did you know that government and cybernetics have the same word root? Some how that inspired me to think about creating better feedback loops at a societal scale..
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Some may not believe in government. I believe in government, because we are government. Running for office is no different than chasing a round of funding: you're selling an idea. A startup will never be as impactful as public policy with nation state fiscal policy backing it up. Seek office, not funding. > did you know that government and cybernetics have the same word root? TIL!
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      "A startup will never be as impactful as public policy with nation state fiscal policy backing it up" These involve selling to different sorts of people and different incentives once you get going.
atmosx 7y ago
To take this one step further: How many engineering hours and brain power gets wasted so that 12-year-olds can upload high definition pictures and videos online few seconds faster? Then again, nothing has "meaning" unless we decide to hand it over.
toohotatopic 7y ago
The money isn't gone. Some bank has Rebekah's billion on its books and can lent it to whoever needs it. Many people have sold their real estate at a profit and now have the money to invest in startups. The bottleneck are the people who can organize the vertical integrated healthcare system or the higher education. Whoever can organize such an endeavor can convince an angel investor to build a prototype and then expand by getting the VC money.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  "The money isn't gone." I'd suggest...the vaporized market capital isn't the money that is gone. The money that is gone is their cumulative operating losses, right? Not as much but still substantial.
  - toohotatopic 7y ago
    Their losses - somebody else's income. Somebody more competent has the money now and can spend it on startups.
    - perl4ever 7y ago
      Selling stock is just a transfer of money. But operating a business at a loss is destroying real stuff. When the dream of future profits goes away, you have to face up to that.
      - toohotatopic 7y ago
        If you start a business of digging holes and you manage to get seed funding of $1000, and you pay two persons $500 to dig a hole and to fill up the other hole afterwards, you end up with nothing. But the two persons have $500 each. For the economy, the money isn't gone. Hopefully the new owners of that money use it to invest in better ventures. All that was lost was time and energy, but not money.
        7y ago
servercobra 7y ago
The kind of people investing in WeWork very likely aren't going to invest in the kind of moonshot-type companies you're talking about (minus vertical healthcare, as that exists in various forms like Kaiser Permanente). Nuclear fusion or cancer treatments have even lower chance of success than a startup and much longer timelines. Should they get funded? Yes, of course. But I don't think VC is going to be the route here.

toomuchtodo 7y ago

Funny you write this comment, as I thought about exactly this the other day while out for a jog. These aren't VC problems, these are politics problems ("Think vertically integrated healthcare/hospital systems that remove insurance from the equation [1], nuclear fusion [2], new models for higher education [3], cancer treatments [4], etc."). I want my government funding these ideas, not some VC partner you have to pander to. Have a moonshot idea? DARPA/ARPA-E Tesla and SpaceX weren't government funded per se (kudos Elon), but they took advantage of US government subsidies/financing (Tesla) and NASA contracts (SpaceX), which I take no issue with. But those are the exceptions, not the rule. [1] Single payer Medicare For All, with a HHS (Health & Human Services) central EHR/EMR system [2] US ITER [3] Khan Academy, Coursea, Udemy (non-profits, not gov) [4] US NIH (who provided the vast majority of the resources researching treatments for HIV/AIDS)

KoftaBob 7y ago
and it's great to encourage government initiatives to tackle those problems, but I'm not implying private startups should replace those initiatives, but rather complement them. The mighty NASA and Russia's space program hadn't (and still haven't) figured out how to build reusable self-landing rockets (for a # of reasons), and yet a company with startup-level resources like SpaceX did. Part of it is because startups have to succeed at their goal, or they die. Government entities don't die if they don't pull off medicare for all. In addition, startups don't have the slow and bulky bureaucracy of government in their way. Think of what those advantages can bring about in healthcare, energy, and other moonshot fields, if they just had the funding. Hence why it's so important for big funds like SoftBank to invest in those, not nonsense startups with nothing more than a cult leader.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  You're not arguing for arrangement of government vs startups though, you're arguing for passion, determination, fortitude, and grit (and domain expertise, of course). The organizational structure (private vs public) is less important. Government can operate as efficiently as some of the leanest, most nimble startups, and private companies can operate as poorly as the worst run parts of government. I too can provide examples of private companies that are enormous, dysfunctional, and yet still lumber on (Boeing) similarly to how some parts of government have operated. The private sector is not a silver bullet for innovation and efficiency. Regarding SpaceX, Elon Musk is a cult leader, and rightly so; he gets shit done (I have previously said he is our least terrible billionaire). Hire more people into government who get shit done, and get out of their way (see: US Digital Service/18F, for example). Regarding bureaucracy, some amount of regulation is beneficial. "Most fast, break things" gets old when you're committing fraud like Theranos. If one desires a little less bureaucracy, that is what incubators like DARPA are for. Think of what horrors startups would foist upon us chasing valuations and profits without any regulation whatsoever. Disclaimer: I am biased. I don't believe in American Exceptionalism, nor rugged individualism.
dr_dshiv 7y ago
The problem is that we don't believe in government. BTW, did you know that government and cybernetics have the same word root? Some how that inspired me to think about creating better feedback loops at a societal scale..
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Some may not believe in government. I believe in government, because we are government. Running for office is no different than chasing a round of funding: you're selling an idea. A startup will never be as impactful as public policy with nation state fiscal policy backing it up. Seek office, not funding. > did you know that government and cybernetics have the same word root? TIL!
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    "A startup will never be as impactful as public policy with nation state fiscal policy backing it up" These involve selling to different sorts of people and different incentives once you get going.

atmosx 7y ago

To take this one step further: How many engineering hours and brain power gets wasted so that 12-year-olds can upload high definition pictures and videos online few seconds faster? Then again, nothing has "meaning" unless we decide to hand it over.

toohotatopic 7y ago

The money isn't gone. Some bank has Rebekah's billion on its books and can lent it to whoever needs it. Many people have sold their real estate at a profit and now have the money to invest in startups. The bottleneck are the people who can organize the vertical integrated healthcare system or the higher education. Whoever can organize such an endeavor can convince an angel investor to build a prototype and then expand by getting the VC money.

perl4ever 7y ago
"The money isn't gone." I'd suggest...the vaporized market capital isn't the money that is gone. The money that is gone is their cumulative operating losses, right? Not as much but still substantial.
- toohotatopic 7y ago
  Their losses - somebody else's income. Somebody more competent has the money now and can spend it on startups.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    Selling stock is just a transfer of money. But operating a business at a loss is destroying real stuff. When the dream of future profits goes away, you have to face up to that.
    - toohotatopic 7y ago
      If you start a business of digging holes and you manage to get seed funding of $1000, and you pay two persons $500 to dig a hole and to fill up the other hole afterwards, you end up with nothing. But the two persons have $500 each. For the economy, the money isn't gone. Hopefully the new owners of that money use it to invest in better ventures. All that was lost was time and energy, but not money.
      - 7y ago

servercobra 7y ago

The kind of people investing in WeWork very likely aren't going to invest in the kind of moonshot-type companies you're talking about (minus vertical healthcare, as that exists in various forms like Kaiser Permanente). Nuclear fusion or cancer treatments have even lower chance of success than a startup and much longer timelines. Should they get funded? Yes, of course. But I don't think VC is going to be the route here.