5 ms·

Notice that the article never tells you what advice they didn't listen to, and mentions a single mistake by a single company. The only general principle that's

by strken 6y ago

Notice that the article never tells you what advice they didn't listen to, and mentions a single mistake by a single company. The only general principle that's useful (as opposed to the obligatory observations on age and race) is hiring people with food industry experience.

ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Silicon valley startups ignore established industry expertise, burn cash in silly ways, dont prioritise business sustainability and try to reinvent the wheel with a strange mixture of ignorance and arrogance? No, never happened before!
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you invent the modern consumer electric car and the modern commercial space program. The beauty of SV startups is just that - high variance.
  - Apocryphon 6y ago
    The trick is to ignore survivorship bias every step of the way
    - renewiltord 6y ago
      Oh no, it's the opposite. Established companies could be established for no good reason. ULA was in space, they're the experts, but they could be beaten. The incumbent could be just a result of survivorship bias. That's what presents an opportunity. If the incumbent is just very good at the product, the only part you can disrupt is margin (or verticalize or something, but lets set aside that) and you don't want to be in a price war unless you're uniquely suited to it. So you don't fight those guys. So you count on the market leader being disruptable, which is often because they're just there as accidental survivors.
      - Apocryphon 6y ago
        What you write makes a lot of sense in terms of successful startup strategy. It doesn’t detract from the vacuity of your original statement on “high variance“. When you cherry-pick two data points- from the same founder, even- while ignoring the high rate of failed startups, it makes for quite an empty fallacious statement indeed. One might as well argue for the merits of big government statism by singing the praises of the Manhattan Project and the Apollo program, while contrasting them with the DMV.
        renewiltord 6y ago
        Well, yes, you can and you'd be right. That's how existence proofs work. State funded projects make great moonshots, yes, and you have some great examples. It's a great argument for Big Government statists that governments are capable of large scale technological progress out of the reach of common corporations.
        Apocryphon 6y ago
        But no one was disputing the existence of successful, even wildly successful startups. People are criticizing startups that behave ignorantly and arrogantly. (And quite frankly, give the entire scene a bad name.) You are attempting to play devil's advocate by pointing out that some flout conventional wisdom and established practices and succeed. Very well, we can all agree that those enterprises exist. The question is if they exist in any appreciable number, which is very debatable- again, due to the simple arithmetic of very low startup success rates. You are celebrating lottery winners. The existence of that very few does not justify bad behavior from (some of) the rest. Your proof is facile.
        renewiltord 6y ago
        It isn't bad behaviour. It's just a failure. No harm in trying things that don't work. It doesn't look anyone misrepresented themselves. They came in, sucked, and got taken out by the market. The fact that they didn't listen hardly matters. It's not bad behaviour to not listen to advice from your landlord. I'm not playing Devil's Advocate. I genuinely think it is good that people are trying different things. They're exploring the state space and I enjoy that. If they were actually misrepresenting themselves or their ability to pay, or reneged on their debts without going out of business (which is a well-understood way to renege), or something like that, sure. But it looks like everything is on the level and the article is just saying that all of these guys who tried it weren't good at it. That's not a crime or even morally problematic.
    - numpad0 6y ago
      I’m not so sure. When it comes to manufacturing, attempts at cutting corners seems to just disrupt startups themselves. Only in business models the break things philosophy seems to work. idk though
  - sxxahsuxh 6y ago
    The modern consumer electric car did not come by throwing darts at a board and hoping for a bullseye. It was planned on scientific principles and took decades of precursor work.
    - renewiltord 6y ago
      Amusingly enough, until Tesla was successful, HN was all ablaze with why they shouldn't try new things. Tesla should just hire all the experts from Ford et. al. and do the same thing as everyone else, except electric. In fact, they were going to fail because they didn't understand "automotive grade". Touchscreens? Psh, guaranteed product failure. SpaceX was going to fail because they didn't use conventional wisdom building their stuff. They used Electron for their UI (my god! guaranteed product failure! astronauts will hate them!). Their stuff exploded when they tried it out. Classic, should've done what ULA did. ULA are the experts. "They don't listen". That was always the theme. They don't listen. That's why they win.
      - Spooky23 6y ago
        I don’t remember hearing those complaints about SpaceX. Nobody has anything good to say about ULA — it’s a joint venture of defense contractors. Tesla makes a lot of stupid choices and are an example of survivorship bias in many ways. They make opinionated products and Musk has the instinct to play chicken and attract investors to keep the thing alive.
        renewiltord 6y ago
        Fortunately, we can search: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19905701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19905701 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20446963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20446963 (Boeing is part of ULA) * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22095120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22095120 (Claims that SpaceX is treated better than Boeing) * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22096380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22096380 (I've seen more accidents from SpaceX than launches from Boeing) To be clear, I just searched "site:news.ycombinator.com spacex boeing" and grabbed the first few I could. Took me 5 minutes. It probably isn't too far to go to find comments about how ULA hasn't had a single explosion or some such thing.
  - hinkley 6y ago
    Essentially the VC people have figured out how to make money off of the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy. There's an element of dumb luck at play, and too few will recognize that.
    - renewiltord 6y ago
      No, that's the point. You aim at the guys for whom, if they're lucky, they can win and win big. Then you attempt to cover as much of that space as efficiently with your money as possible. That's what the VC world is about. Luck is factored in. You don't make the waves, but you do need to be out there on your surfboard if you want to catch one.
- strken 6y ago
  This is just confirmation bias without supporting evidence. It may or may not be true, but we can't glean that from the article, because it says very little.
- MattGaiser 6y ago
  > Silicon valley startups ignore established industry expertise The challenge is that if you can actually find some established industry expertise that is merely "we have always done it this way" , you make a lot of money. Attempts at innovation are always going to lead to a certain number of dead ends that end up being "stupid wastes of money."
creddit 6y ago
It’s really striking how little substance there is to this article except that it tries to let us know that it’s bad that White people without experience in an area tried to work in that area. The combination of race focus and enforcement of credentialism is really a striking aspect of today’s media.
- blahbhthrow3748 6y ago
  It doesn't seem surprising to contrast the ethos of overwhelmingly white tech founders - who want to get filthy rich off the labor of others - with the majority immigrant-owned businesses that require a lifetime of dedication. A tech founder doesn't want to start a kimchi business where they can show up every day, work hard and make a living. They want to make a kimchi service where they can work for a few years and then IPO and have enough money to live a thousand lifetimes. Probably by exploiting contract workers.
ipsum2 6y ago
> Her tenants included companies like the pizza-delivery app called Easy as Pi, a meal delivery service called Din and a ready-made meal kit company called Sprig. > far different than the food tech would-be entrepreneurs. “They are young, white,” she says, “the kind of people you see in a J. Crew catalog.” This isn't even true. Easy as Pi is founded by Evan Kuo, who's Asian. Sprig is founded by Gagan Biyani, who is Indian. Din seems to have the only white founder, Emily Olson LaFave.
- klipt 6y ago
  Indians and Asians are basically considered white in tech, especially if they're male. And white women have so much white privilege, they're practically men. So you see, all those founders were pretty much white men. /s
  - cinbun8 6y ago
    I really thought you were serious until I saw the /s. I wonder - Is there an onion version for comments? Can people really tell the difference anymore?

by strken 6y ago

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

Silicon valley startups ignore established industry expertise, burn cash in silly ways, dont prioritise business sustainability and try to reinvent the wheel with a strange mixture of ignorance and arrogance? No, never happened before!

renewiltord 6y ago
Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you invent the modern consumer electric car and the modern commercial space program. The beauty of SV startups is just that - high variance.
- Apocryphon 6y ago
  The trick is to ignore survivorship bias every step of the way
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    Oh no, it's the opposite. Established companies could be established for no good reason. ULA was in space, they're the experts, but they could be beaten. The incumbent could be just a result of survivorship bias. That's what presents an opportunity. If the incumbent is just very good at the product, the only part you can disrupt is margin (or verticalize or something, but lets set aside that) and you don't want to be in a price war unless you're uniquely suited to it. So you don't fight those guys. So you count on the market leader being disruptable, which is often because they're just there as accidental survivors.
    - Apocryphon 6y ago
      What you write makes a lot of sense in terms of successful startup strategy. It doesn’t detract from the vacuity of your original statement on “high variance“. When you cherry-pick two data points- from the same founder, even- while ignoring the high rate of failed startups, it makes for quite an empty fallacious statement indeed. One might as well argue for the merits of big government statism by singing the praises of the Manhattan Project and the Apollo program, while contrasting them with the DMV.
      - renewiltord 6y ago
        Well, yes, you can and you'd be right. That's how existence proofs work. State funded projects make great moonshots, yes, and you have some great examples. It's a great argument for Big Government statists that governments are capable of large scale technological progress out of the reach of common corporations.
        Apocryphon 6y ago
        But no one was disputing the existence of successful, even wildly successful startups. People are criticizing startups that behave ignorantly and arrogantly. (And quite frankly, give the entire scene a bad name.) You are attempting to play devil's advocate by pointing out that some flout conventional wisdom and established practices and succeed. Very well, we can all agree that those enterprises exist. The question is if they exist in any appreciable number, which is very debatable- again, due to the simple arithmetic of very low startup success rates. You are celebrating lottery winners. The existence of that very few does not justify bad behavior from (some of) the rest. Your proof is facile.
        renewiltord 6y ago
        It isn't bad behaviour. It's just a failure. No harm in trying things that don't work. It doesn't look anyone misrepresented themselves. They came in, sucked, and got taken out by the market. The fact that they didn't listen hardly matters. It's not bad behaviour to not listen to advice from your landlord. I'm not playing Devil's Advocate. I genuinely think it is good that people are trying different things. They're exploring the state space and I enjoy that. If they were actually misrepresenting themselves or their ability to pay, or reneged on their debts without going out of business (which is a well-understood way to renege), or something like that, sure. But it looks like everything is on the level and the article is just saying that all of these guys who tried it weren't good at it. That's not a crime or even morally problematic.
  - numpad0 6y ago
    I’m not so sure. When it comes to manufacturing, attempts at cutting corners seems to just disrupt startups themselves. Only in business models the break things philosophy seems to work. idk though
- sxxahsuxh 6y ago
  The modern consumer electric car did not come by throwing darts at a board and hoping for a bullseye. It was planned on scientific principles and took decades of precursor work.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    Amusingly enough, until Tesla was successful, HN was all ablaze with why they shouldn't try new things. Tesla should just hire all the experts from Ford et. al. and do the same thing as everyone else, except electric. In fact, they were going to fail because they didn't understand "automotive grade". Touchscreens? Psh, guaranteed product failure. SpaceX was going to fail because they didn't use conventional wisdom building their stuff. They used Electron for their UI (my god! guaranteed product failure! astronauts will hate them!). Their stuff exploded when they tried it out. Classic, should've done what ULA did. ULA are the experts. "They don't listen". That was always the theme. They don't listen. That's why they win.
    - Spooky23 6y ago
      I don’t remember hearing those complaints about SpaceX. Nobody has anything good to say about ULA — it’s a joint venture of defense contractors. Tesla makes a lot of stupid choices and are an example of survivorship bias in many ways. They make opinionated products and Musk has the instinct to play chicken and attract investors to keep the thing alive.
      - renewiltord 6y ago
        Fortunately, we can search: * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19905701 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19905701 * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20446963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20446963 (Boeing is part of ULA) * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22095120 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22095120 (Claims that SpaceX is treated better than Boeing) * https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22096380 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22096380 (I've seen more accidents from SpaceX than launches from Boeing) To be clear, I just searched "site:news.ycombinator.com spacex boeing" and grabbed the first few I could. Took me 5 minutes. It probably isn't too far to go to find comments about how ULA hasn't had a single explosion or some such thing.
- hinkley 6y ago
  Essentially the VC people have figured out how to make money off of the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy. There's an element of dumb luck at play, and too few will recognize that.
  - renewiltord 6y ago
    No, that's the point. You aim at the guys for whom, if they're lucky, they can win and win big. Then you attempt to cover as much of that space as efficiently with your money as possible. That's what the VC world is about. Luck is factored in. You don't make the waves, but you do need to be out there on your surfboard if you want to catch one.
strken 6y ago
This is just confirmation bias without supporting evidence. It may or may not be true, but we can't glean that from the article, because it says very little.
MattGaiser 6y ago
> Silicon valley startups ignore established industry expertise The challenge is that if you can actually find some established industry expertise that is merely "we have always done it this way" , you make a lot of money. Attempts at innovation are always going to lead to a certain number of dead ends that end up being "stupid wastes of money."

creddit 6y ago

It’s really striking how little substance there is to this article except that it tries to let us know that it’s bad that White people without experience in an area tried to work in that area. The combination of race focus and enforcement of credentialism is really a striking aspect of today’s media.

blahbhthrow3748 6y ago
It doesn't seem surprising to contrast the ethos of overwhelmingly white tech founders - who want to get filthy rich off the labor of others - with the majority immigrant-owned businesses that require a lifetime of dedication. A tech founder doesn't want to start a kimchi business where they can show up every day, work hard and make a living. They want to make a kimchi service where they can work for a few years and then IPO and have enough money to live a thousand lifetimes. Probably by exploiting contract workers.

ipsum2 6y ago

> Her tenants included companies like the pizza-delivery app called Easy as Pi, a meal delivery service called Din and a ready-made meal kit company called Sprig. > far different than the food tech would-be entrepreneurs. “They are young, white,” she says, “the kind of people you see in a J. Crew catalog.” This isn't even true. Easy as Pi is founded by Evan Kuo, who's Asian. Sprig is founded by Gagan Biyani, who is Indian. Din seems to have the only white founder, Emily Olson LaFave.

klipt 6y ago
Indians and Asians are basically considered white in tech, especially if they're male. And white women have so much white privilege, they're practically men. So you see, all those founders were pretty much white men. /s
- cinbun8 6y ago
  I really thought you were serious until I saw the /s. I wonder - Is there an onion version for comments? Can people really tell the difference anymore?