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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 a

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.

perl4ever 7y ago
In that sense, not losing money isn't an achievement, because how could it be lost? If you literally burn your cash, you have just transferred wealth to everyone else. "All that was lost was time and energy" but that's all that can be lost, so where's the consolation? Your logic seems to me exactly like justifications I've seen of why bitcoin's proof of work mechanism is worthwhile and sane.
- toohotatopic 7y ago
  Unlike bitcoins, wework hasn't bought energy and unlike google, they haven't employed many engineers. Actually, they have subsidized engineers by renting out their offices below market value. So it's quite possible that they haven't burned too much energy and time of scarce resources. I was replying to this comment: >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. OP was worried about the money and my point is that the money is still there for the moonshots. Now instead of having to convince Softbank or the Saudis, who want to see huge profits, it should actually be easier to get the money. It is spread out and chances are that some of the new owners value human progress over profits.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    I guess I agree that the deflation of their market value is a good thing in that it forcibly prevents continued hemorrhaging of capital. That's the point of all the speculative gyrations. It just shouldn't be forgotten that the interval before the market corrected had a substantial cost that didn't get recovered by anyone.

perl4ever 7y ago

In that sense, not losing money isn't an achievement, because how could it be lost? If you literally burn your cash, you have just transferred wealth to everyone else. "All that was lost was time and energy" but that's all that can be lost, so where's the consolation? Your logic seems to me exactly like justifications I've seen of why bitcoin's proof of work mechanism is worthwhile and sane.

toohotatopic 7y ago
Unlike bitcoins, wework hasn't bought energy and unlike google, they haven't employed many engineers. Actually, they have subsidized engineers by renting out their offices below market value. So it's quite possible that they haven't burned too much energy and time of scarce resources. I was replying to this comment: >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. OP was worried about the money and my point is that the money is still there for the moonshots. Now instead of having to convince Softbank or the Saudis, who want to see huge profits, it should actually be easier to get the money. It is spread out and chances are that some of the new owners value human progress over profits.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I guess I agree that the deflation of their market value is a good thing in that it forcibly prevents continued hemorrhaging of capital. That's the point of all the speculative gyrations. It just shouldn't be forgotten that the interval before the market corrected had a substantial cost that didn't get recovered by anyone.