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While i've nothing against Wimdu (or AirBnB), I am against putting insane amounts of money into something that not only is a "clone" of another business, it is

by kinkora 15y ago

While i've nothing against Wimdu (or AirBnB), I am against putting insane amounts of money into something that not only is a "clone" of another business, it is also what I define as a business that does not exactly "push humanity forward". I could give a myriad of better uses for that $90 million: - Keep the SETI initiative going (and along with a few arrays) - Any tpe of medical (cancer, genetics, etc) research - Next generation wireless infrastructure networks - Any viable cleantech startup And the list goes on and on and on and on..

hvs 15y ago
At some point, each person decides how much value something provides to themselves or others and acts accordingly. You put a lot of value in the items that you list, others put value in things like Airbnb. To claim that because Airbnb doesn't "push humanity forward" (by whatever measure you imagine that to be) that it is somehow a waste of money is a bit much. For one thing, $100MM sounds like a lot of money, but in the big picture of "pushing humanity forward" it is almost nothing. Secondly, as a society, we aren't going to put 100% of our wealth into those items, or any other list that one person considers "important". So why is it so terrible that it is going to something that provides many people real value (as they define it for themselves)?
- kinkora 15y ago
  I wasn't referring to AirBnB specifically but the gist of my comment is I don't see how an AirBnB clone can justify $90m worth of capital. So maybe my usage of the term "pushing humanity forward" may be a lil bit grandiose but i certainly didn't mean giant leaps straight off. For example, i consider Google/Wikipedia to be an invention that "pushed humanity forward" because it raised the collective IQ of the human race (with access to it of course) by a few notches. Both companies certainly didn't need $90m worth of capital initially to start off but benefitted from a few angel investments. What i probably should have said is that the $90m could have better been allocated to things that are more worthwhile to humanity and not investing in just another "clone" of something. But I guess kristofferR is right. At the end of the day, the only thing most investors care about is making money and since it is their money, it is fully in their right to choose what they want to invest in.
deleted 15y ago
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kristofferR 15y ago
No investor cares about pushing humanity forward, they care about making money on their investments. And that's okay - since in most cases the amount of money made is proportional to the value something creates.
pbreit 15y ago
I actually think that making travel cheaper and more enjoyable, connecting visitors with hosts, utilizing unused space, etc. are pretty worthy objectives.

by kinkora 15y ago

hvs 15y ago

At some point, each person decides how much value something provides to themselves or others and acts accordingly. You put a lot of value in the items that you list, others put value in things like Airbnb. To claim that because Airbnb doesn't "push humanity forward" (by whatever measure you imagine that to be) that it is somehow a waste of money is a bit much. For one thing, $100MM sounds like a lot of money, but in the big picture of "pushing humanity forward" it is almost nothing. Secondly, as a society, we aren't going to put 100% of our wealth into those items, or any other list that one person considers "important". So why is it so terrible that it is going to something that provides many people real value (as they define it for themselves)?

kinkora 15y ago
I wasn't referring to AirBnB specifically but the gist of my comment is I don't see how an AirBnB clone can justify $90m worth of capital. So maybe my usage of the term "pushing humanity forward" may be a lil bit grandiose but i certainly didn't mean giant leaps straight off. For example, i consider Google/Wikipedia to be an invention that "pushed humanity forward" because it raised the collective IQ of the human race (with access to it of course) by a few notches. Both companies certainly didn't need $90m worth of capital initially to start off but benefitted from a few angel investments. What i probably should have said is that the $90m could have better been allocated to things that are more worthwhile to humanity and not investing in just another "clone" of something. But I guess kristofferR is right. At the end of the day, the only thing most investors care about is making money and since it is their money, it is fully in their right to choose what they want to invest in.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

kristofferR 15y ago

No investor cares about pushing humanity forward, they care about making money on their investments. And that's okay - since in most cases the amount of money made is proportional to the value something creates.

pbreit 15y ago

I actually think that making travel cheaper and more enjoyable, connecting visitors with hosts, utilizing unused space, etc. are pretty worthy objectives.