7 ms·

Just about anything is better than a company beholden to the Chinese government getting a strong hold in global social media, but Alphabet isn't too far off the

by seneca 7y ago

Just about anything is better than a company beholden to the Chinese government getting a strong hold in global social media, but Alphabet isn't too far off the list of worst options. We badly need some new blood in the upper echelons of technology.

orky56 7y ago
That potential new blood is just years away from being acquired or morphing into the same poor options.
- seneca 7y ago
  You are very, painfully, right. The patterns that tech has fallen into around finance and acquisitions is a poison pill for disruption.
  - wilg 7y ago
    I would love to do something in this space and would love to know if anybody has ideas for or examples of a sustainable, scalable corporate structure that is less susceptible to these antipatterns and isn't focused on an exit. But that can still compete with the big players. Product is obviously a big part of it, but I think there needs to be some structural changes.
    - jasonv 7y ago
      Thought experiment I had with some friends recently: How would you compete (with/out Google) as [("search engine + ads") + privacy)] if you started now? I do Google & Facebook -free marketing with clients... I believe it's a realm worth considering more.
    - sharkmerry 7y ago
      something like a public benefit corporation? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-benefit_corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-benefit_corporation
    - devbot9 7y ago
      Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't it a fairly simple answer that most founders just prefer mindlessly chasing rounds of investment and "growth for the sake of growth" and cashing out on an exit, rather than just growing organically with minimal outside investment/influence? Anyone can choose to build a quality app/service/startup based on the merit of the actual product with company growth fueled by actual need of technical talent and profits from a monetization model, rather than just taking venture capital and hiring six-figure salaried engineers just to fill another open office chair and implement selfie filters.
      - imprettycool 7y ago
        I wouldn't say it's mindless. Organic growth is okay for a lifestyle business, but if you want to compete with Google/FB/etc you need fast growth (or a really fucking good business plan). If you want fast growth then you need capital that you're okay with pissing away. You can front all that capital yourself if you're rich (e.g. Gabe Newell's M$ money going into Valve) or you go the VC route. VC route is simply less risky. Less chance of competition beating you to the punch, and no chance of losing all your money. At least that's my understanding.
    - throwaway_USD 7y ago
      You have two very simple options: >option #1: a not for profit, so "the next Google" isn't owned by anyone. >option #2: give every user a non transferable share of in a for profit entity so users are owners of "the next Google" and have "skin in the game" and incentive to use the product in lieu of Google.
    - unlinked_dll 7y ago
      I think your starting point is already flawed. Scale is needed for high value liquidity events which is needed for ROI to investors and employees compensated with equity. If you realign the goal to return maximum value to your employees as soon as possible, then you can align incentives to maximize the creation and growth of markets to sustainably capture value and give it to the people that made it possible. So just don't take VC money and build a company to give back to your employees as much as possible as soon as possible and do it without competing directly in any existing market or trying to take existing market share. Sounds tough.
    - orky56 7y ago
      To succeed in social, you need to exploit network effects to scale your user base. You might get a flash in the pan with some seeded content or go viral for a brief second. In the long run, you need to spend big and more than established competition even in niche markets if you want to create a beachhead. Even if you had the capital to do it yourself, you probably shouldn't since that's not smart in terms of risk. So then you will need to resort to investment from VCs (even angels can't fund a social product beyond seed). At that point, you have conflated your purpose from a do good-social enterprise to a venture that needs to provide 50x return for your investors. Remember the value per user that acquiring companies pay for when they acquire said company and compare that to how much you will need to spend to acquire them from scratch. If you can't nail the distribution (sales & marketing) side of the equation, the product won't have a chance to get off the ground let alone survive.
  - zalkota 7y ago
    Ethereum ecosystem will solve this issue in 5 years
sneak 7y ago
Please don't make this nationalistic. Companies beholden to the US government are just as invasive. Your comment is a red herring.
- noarchy 7y ago
  One could reply by requesting that we not reduce this to whataboutisms, which seems to happen without fail when someone invokes China.
- seneca 7y ago
  It has nothing to do with nationalism. I'd be perfectly happy to see a, for example, Canadian, Japanese, or South African company doing well because their governments don't systemically murder dissenters and commit genocide. Every nation has room for improvement, but the people of China are being dominated by a group that anyone with a shred of morality ought to be very wary of.
  - dntbnmpls 7y ago
    > their governments don't systemically murder dissenters and commit genocide. Which people has china committed genocide against? Don't say uyghurs as it would be an insult to the native americans, jews, armenians, etc who actually experienced real genocide. > but the people of China are being dominated by a group that anyone with a shred of morality ought to be very wary of. Dominated by a group that liberated china from brutal european, japanese and american colonizers? Dominated by a group that lifted 800 million chinese out of poverty? If the chinese people don't want the chinese government, there is nothing the chinese government can do. Perhaps, just perhaps, the chinese government has done a lot of good as well? That's why they are able to maintain power? Maybe? And if we are talking about morality, you haven't listed a single government that has morality.
    - hatsunearu 7y ago
      >Which people has china committed genocide against? Don't say uyghurs as it would be an insult to the native americans, jews, armenians, etc who actually experienced real genocide. What about good old fashioned Han Chinese? Mao's rule was devastating. Killed more than WWII killed /people/. Also the kill number isn't the factor here. It's not call of duty. That's like saying people who died in Columbine should just stop whining because millions of Jews died.
Nextgrid 7y ago
TikTok doesn't try to stalk me across the entire internet; if I'm concerned about its origin I can choose not to use it. Google on the other hand attempts to stalk me everywhere (with their ads and analytics) regardless of whether I use their products directly or even have an account with them.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  TikTok might not stalk you across the internet, but how do you know they're not giving your data to someone who will?
  - Nextgrid 7y ago
    If I don't use their app then there will be no data to give away. This is a very good thing compared to Google and Facebook who litter the web with their crap regardless of whether you're using their products directly.
- russdpale 7y ago
  If you think the Chinese government is letting an opportunity like TikTok pass them by, then you are absurdly naive. I'm positive its creative shadow profiles just like google and facebook and twitter.
_bxg1 7y ago
We had Vine, and was left by Twitter to die for no reason. Now TikTok has a social foothold that no amount of raw technological achievement will overcome; the Vine creator actually launched his own Vine 2.0 under a different name a few months ago. I can't even remember the name of it; probably nobody can, because TikTok isn't about the tech, it's about the network effect. Google is most successful when it creates a technology that a) nobody else can create, and b) happens to be a brand-new product category that's so compelling that people adopt it purely on its technical merits. Search obviously had both; Stadia had a but not b. Their TikTok competitor won't have either. The only thing it would have going for it is brand-recognition from YouTube, which still holds some amount of pull with Gen Z (though TikTok has been encroaching on that territory). I'm not holding my breath for it being a success.
Traster 7y ago
Absolutely, it's been a talking point of big silicon valley companies that China picks winners so the US needs to allow monopolies to compete with China, but this completely ignores the fact that the way the USA has competed with communist countries in the past isn't to emulate them, but to beat them with real innovation.

by seneca 7y ago

orky56 7y ago

That potential new blood is just years away from being acquired or morphing into the same poor options.

seneca 7y ago
You are very, painfully, right. The patterns that tech has fallen into around finance and acquisitions is a poison pill for disruption.
- wilg 7y ago
  I would love to do something in this space and would love to know if anybody has ideas for or examples of a sustainable, scalable corporate structure that is less susceptible to these antipatterns and isn't focused on an exit. But that can still compete with the big players. Product is obviously a big part of it, but I think there needs to be some structural changes.
  - jasonv 7y ago
    Thought experiment I had with some friends recently: How would you compete (with/out Google) as [("search engine + ads") + privacy)] if you started now? I do Google & Facebook -free marketing with clients... I believe it's a realm worth considering more.
  - sharkmerry 7y ago
    something like a public benefit corporation? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-benefit_corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public-benefit_corporation
  - devbot9 7y ago
    Maybe I'm missing something, but isn't it a fairly simple answer that most founders just prefer mindlessly chasing rounds of investment and "growth for the sake of growth" and cashing out on an exit, rather than just growing organically with minimal outside investment/influence? Anyone can choose to build a quality app/service/startup based on the merit of the actual product with company growth fueled by actual need of technical talent and profits from a monetization model, rather than just taking venture capital and hiring six-figure salaried engineers just to fill another open office chair and implement selfie filters.
    - imprettycool 7y ago
      I wouldn't say it's mindless. Organic growth is okay for a lifestyle business, but if you want to compete with Google/FB/etc you need fast growth (or a really fucking good business plan). If you want fast growth then you need capital that you're okay with pissing away. You can front all that capital yourself if you're rich (e.g. Gabe Newell's M$ money going into Valve) or you go the VC route. VC route is simply less risky. Less chance of competition beating you to the punch, and no chance of losing all your money. At least that's my understanding.
  - throwaway_USD 7y ago
    You have two very simple options: >option #1: a not for profit, so "the next Google" isn't owned by anyone. >option #2: give every user a non transferable share of in a for profit entity so users are owners of "the next Google" and have "skin in the game" and incentive to use the product in lieu of Google.
  - unlinked_dll 7y ago
    I think your starting point is already flawed. Scale is needed for high value liquidity events which is needed for ROI to investors and employees compensated with equity. If you realign the goal to return maximum value to your employees as soon as possible, then you can align incentives to maximize the creation and growth of markets to sustainably capture value and give it to the people that made it possible. So just don't take VC money and build a company to give back to your employees as much as possible as soon as possible and do it without competing directly in any existing market or trying to take existing market share. Sounds tough.
  - orky56 7y ago
    To succeed in social, you need to exploit network effects to scale your user base. You might get a flash in the pan with some seeded content or go viral for a brief second. In the long run, you need to spend big and more than established competition even in niche markets if you want to create a beachhead. Even if you had the capital to do it yourself, you probably shouldn't since that's not smart in terms of risk. So then you will need to resort to investment from VCs (even angels can't fund a social product beyond seed). At that point, you have conflated your purpose from a do good-social enterprise to a venture that needs to provide 50x return for your investors. Remember the value per user that acquiring companies pay for when they acquire said company and compare that to how much you will need to spend to acquire them from scratch. If you can't nail the distribution (sales & marketing) side of the equation, the product won't have a chance to get off the ground let alone survive.
- zalkota 7y ago
  Ethereum ecosystem will solve this issue in 5 years

sneak 7y ago

Please don't make this nationalistic. Companies beholden to the US government are just as invasive. Your comment is a red herring.

noarchy 7y ago
One could reply by requesting that we not reduce this to whataboutisms, which seems to happen without fail when someone invokes China.
seneca 7y ago
It has nothing to do with nationalism. I'd be perfectly happy to see a, for example, Canadian, Japanese, or South African company doing well because their governments don't systemically murder dissenters and commit genocide. Every nation has room for improvement, but the people of China are being dominated by a group that anyone with a shred of morality ought to be very wary of.
- dntbnmpls 7y ago
  > their governments don't systemically murder dissenters and commit genocide. Which people has china committed genocide against? Don't say uyghurs as it would be an insult to the native americans, jews, armenians, etc who actually experienced real genocide. > but the people of China are being dominated by a group that anyone with a shred of morality ought to be very wary of. Dominated by a group that liberated china from brutal european, japanese and american colonizers? Dominated by a group that lifted 800 million chinese out of poverty? If the chinese people don't want the chinese government, there is nothing the chinese government can do. Perhaps, just perhaps, the chinese government has done a lot of good as well? That's why they are able to maintain power? Maybe? And if we are talking about morality, you haven't listed a single government that has morality.
  - hatsunearu 7y ago
    >Which people has china committed genocide against? Don't say uyghurs as it would be an insult to the native americans, jews, armenians, etc who actually experienced real genocide. What about good old fashioned Han Chinese? Mao's rule was devastating. Killed more than WWII killed /people/. Also the kill number isn't the factor here. It's not call of duty. That's like saying people who died in Columbine should just stop whining because millions of Jews died.

Nextgrid 7y ago

TikTok doesn't try to stalk me across the entire internet; if I'm concerned about its origin I can choose not to use it. Google on the other hand attempts to stalk me everywhere (with their ads and analytics) regardless of whether I use their products directly or even have an account with them.

saagarjha 7y ago
TikTok might not stalk you across the internet, but how do you know they're not giving your data to someone who will?
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  If I don't use their app then there will be no data to give away. This is a very good thing compared to Google and Facebook who litter the web with their crap regardless of whether you're using their products directly.
russdpale 7y ago
If you think the Chinese government is letting an opportunity like TikTok pass them by, then you are absurdly naive. I'm positive its creative shadow profiles just like google and facebook and twitter.

_bxg1 7y ago

We had Vine, and was left by Twitter to die for no reason. Now TikTok has a social foothold that no amount of raw technological achievement will overcome; the Vine creator actually launched his own Vine 2.0 under a different name a few months ago. I can't even remember the name of it; probably nobody can, because TikTok isn't about the tech, it's about the network effect. Google is most successful when it creates a technology that a) nobody else can create, and b) happens to be a brand-new product category that's so compelling that people adopt it purely on its technical merits. Search obviously had both; Stadia had a but not b. Their TikTok competitor won't have either. The only thing it would have going for it is brand-recognition from YouTube, which still holds some amount of pull with Gen Z (though TikTok has been encroaching on that territory). I'm not holding my breath for it being a success.

Traster 7y ago

Absolutely, it's been a talking point of big silicon valley companies that China picks winners so the US needs to allow monopolies to compete with China, but this completely ignores the fact that the way the USA has competed with communist countries in the past isn't to emulate them, but to beat them with real innovation.