3 ms·

This was my first reaction, but Tren Griffin pointed out something fairly reasonable; VC funding is very small ($50 billion/year or so compared to the trillions

This was my first reaction, but Tren Griffin pointed out something fairly reasonable; VC funding is very small ($50 billion/year or so compared to the trillions the central government spends, to say nothing of the states). Your point is reasonable, I think, but the scale is pretty off as it relates to VC funding vs. public spending.

ignoramous 7y ago
> VC funding is very small The money does and can make a huge difference even if it only helps with building out a proof-of-concept? Uber took on the entrenched Taxi industry world-wide with VC money. Zenefits did the same to the insurance industry. The problem is, one cannot compete with the incumbents head-on, for which one might need a gazillion dollars from the get-go, but I think one can definitely take on them with a humble investment to the tune of a few million dollars... Isn't that anyway the promise of nimble, innovative startups [0] -- out-manouver large corporations? I don't see VCs balking at startups competing squarely with a FAANG, say, for instance. Somehow, this rationale that the government has deeper pockets seems like a dishonest excuse. I agree public spending does trump any amount of money private investors can conjure up, but I do not agree that they are blame-free for not moving the needle forward, because they don't really lack ambition on-paper at least [1]. And, hey, software has been eating the world without significant public spend for a long time. There's been talk of private money building the future [2] for sometime, now... /rant [0] https://medium.com/s/story/jeff-bezos-jack-ma-and-the-quest-to-kill-ebay-bb4992dc5020 https://medium.com/s/story/jeff-bezos-jack-ma-and-the-quest-... [1] https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12508356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12508356

ignoramous 7y ago

> VC funding is very small The money does and can make a huge difference even if it only helps with building out a proof-of-concept? Uber took on the entrenched Taxi industry world-wide with VC money. Zenefits did the same to the insurance industry. The problem is, one cannot compete with the incumbents head-on, for which one might need a gazillion dollars from the get-go, but I think one can definitely take on them with a humble investment to the tune of a few million dollars... Isn't that anyway the promise of nimble, innovative startups [0] -- out-manouver large corporations? I don't see VCs balking at startups competing squarely with a FAANG, say, for instance. Somehow, this rationale that the government has deeper pockets seems like a dishonest excuse. I agree public spending does trump any amount of money private investors can conjure up, but I do not agree that they are blame-free for not moving the needle forward, because they don't really lack ambition on-paper at least [1]. And, hey, software has been eating the world without significant public spend for a long time. There's been talk of private money building the future [2] for sometime, now... /rant [0] https://medium.com/s/story/jeff-bezos-jack-ma-and-the-quest-to-kill-ebay-bb4992dc5020 https://medium.com/s/story/jeff-bezos-jack-ma-and-the-quest-... [1] https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12508356 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12508356