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I think you're making the point. Correct according to... what... lol? The preconceived notion that it should be? I don't even necessarily disagree, but, "No, i

I think you're making the point. Correct according to... what... lol? The preconceived notion that it should be? I don't even necessarily disagree, but, "No, it totally is right" isn't exactly an argument.

sillysaurusx 6y ago
Personal experience. But, my experience is merely anecdata. Does it hold true in general? It seems to. Suppose your company consists of ten people, and its valuation rises to $10M. The value must have come from those ten people. If they weren't at the company, the company would not be worth $10M. It would be easy to dismiss that example too. After all, I made it up. But that kind of example happens all the time in startups. It's such a striking correlation that you'd now have to explain away many hundreds of examples as coincidences, or claim they're due to other factors like the founders' connections, upbringing, being in the right place at the right time, etc. Those things do matter -- in fact, you'd be hard-pressed to start a successful startup without at least one of those -- but you can't bullshit your way through a startup. Either you've made something people want, or you haven't. And if you haven't, your upbringing and personal connections won't change the fact that your startup is doomed. So it seems the simplest explanation is probably true: a small group of smart, dedicated people can do enormously valuable work, given the right conditions. And pg's paragraph seems to explain those conditions pretty well -- at least in my experience.
- 7e 6y ago
  Valuations are bait that VCs use to motivate founders and employees to take below market wages. But after all the rounds are done, the employees are almost always massively diluted back to below market wages. You could just have diluted them in advance, but then they wouldn’t have worked as hard.
- lerchmo 6y ago
  Opportunity, luck, timing, capital, risk, decisions, specific knowledge. Converting hours into value is way more than productivity.

sillysaurusx 6y ago

Personal experience. But, my experience is merely anecdata. Does it hold true in general? It seems to. Suppose your company consists of ten people, and its valuation rises to $10M. The value must have come from those ten people. If they weren't at the company, the company would not be worth $10M. It would be easy to dismiss that example too. After all, I made it up. But that kind of example happens all the time in startups. It's such a striking correlation that you'd now have to explain away many hundreds of examples as coincidences, or claim they're due to other factors like the founders' connections, upbringing, being in the right place at the right time, etc. Those things do matter -- in fact, you'd be hard-pressed to start a successful startup without at least one of those -- but you can't bullshit your way through a startup. Either you've made something people want, or you haven't. And if you haven't, your upbringing and personal connections won't change the fact that your startup is doomed. So it seems the simplest explanation is probably true: a small group of smart, dedicated people can do enormously valuable work, given the right conditions. And pg's paragraph seems to explain those conditions pretty well -- at least in my experience.

7e 6y ago
Valuations are bait that VCs use to motivate founders and employees to take below market wages. But after all the rounds are done, the employees are almost always massively diluted back to below market wages. You could just have diluted them in advance, but then they wouldn’t have worked as hard.
lerchmo 6y ago
Opportunity, luck, timing, capital, risk, decisions, specific knowledge. Converting hours into value is way more than productivity.