3 ms·

Seeing pg peddle NFTs after a16z did it just a few weeks ago is kind of depressing. I guess Silicon Valley VCs must be really stinging about missing out on Bitc

by dvt 6y ago

Seeing pg peddle NFTs after a16z did it just a few weeks ago is kind of depressing. I guess Silicon Valley VCs must be really stinging about missing out on Bitcoin a few years ago. Not to mention that disguising what's essentially a money-making scheme as a benevolent donation is morally murky at best.

tomhoward 6y ago
Giant assumption that Silicon Valley VCs missed out on Bitcoin. YC invested in Coinbase in 2012. Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures invested in 2013. You don't think their partners bought at least a bit of Bitcoin then as well?
- dvt 6y ago
  > You don't think their partners bought at least a bit of Bitcoin then as well? I have no way of knowing but I'd wager probably not; VCs invest in highly-speculative moonshot ideas all the time. Back then, crypto was mostly naïve zealotry. And these days, it's mostly greed. It seems people forgot BitTorrent circa 1999-2003 -- it's history literally repeating itself.
  - tomhoward 6y ago
    Marc Andreessen was publicly speaking of Bitcoin as an important technology in 2014 [1]. He sounded like a true believer then, not a moonshot speculator. I remember Sam Altman (then YC president) tweeting about him and other YC partners trading Bitcoin in about 2014 too. And I heard of Peter Thiel having big Bitcoin investments several years ago. It’s not so true that VC’s “invest in highly-speculative moonshot ideas”. YC does as their business model is to bet on a huge pool to catch the outliers. But traditional VCs have to defend their investments to LPs so have to be more prudent. Any VC investing in Bitcoin companies in 2013 was doing so because they personally believed Bitcoin had huge potential. [1] https://www.econtalk.org/marc-andreessen-on-venture-capital-and-the-digital-future/ https://www.econtalk.org/marc-andreessen-on-venture-capital-...
casi18 6y ago
They absolutely didn't miss bitcoin. Thiel gave Vitalik a scholorship to drop out of university and work on ethereum. a16z have been massive supporters of cryptocurrency startups, as have YC (isnt coinbase their best investment?). Naval, Balajis, Alexis Ohanian. The common thread is crypto. It seems like it is just the HN commenters that don't seem to understand why and still talk about Tulips. Meanwhile reddit is working on community tokens, ebay working on nft listings...
- knowaveragejoe 6y ago
  The common sentiment on HN with regards to crypto is baffling to me. It's like they stopped paying attention in 2017.

by dvt 6y ago

tomhoward 6y ago

Giant assumption that Silicon Valley VCs missed out on Bitcoin. YC invested in Coinbase in 2012. Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures invested in 2013. You don't think their partners bought at least a bit of Bitcoin then as well?

dvt 6y ago
> You don't think their partners bought at least a bit of Bitcoin then as well? I have no way of knowing but I'd wager probably not; VCs invest in highly-speculative moonshot ideas all the time. Back then, crypto was mostly naïve zealotry. And these days, it's mostly greed. It seems people forgot BitTorrent circa 1999-2003 -- it's history literally repeating itself.
- tomhoward 6y ago
  Marc Andreessen was publicly speaking of Bitcoin as an important technology in 2014 [1]. He sounded like a true believer then, not a moonshot speculator. I remember Sam Altman (then YC president) tweeting about him and other YC partners trading Bitcoin in about 2014 too. And I heard of Peter Thiel having big Bitcoin investments several years ago. It’s not so true that VC’s “invest in highly-speculative moonshot ideas”. YC does as their business model is to bet on a huge pool to catch the outliers. But traditional VCs have to defend their investments to LPs so have to be more prudent. Any VC investing in Bitcoin companies in 2013 was doing so because they personally believed Bitcoin had huge potential. [1] https://www.econtalk.org/marc-andreessen-on-venture-capital-and-the-digital-future/ https://www.econtalk.org/marc-andreessen-on-venture-capital-...

casi18 6y ago

They absolutely didn't miss bitcoin. Thiel gave Vitalik a scholorship to drop out of university and work on ethereum. a16z have been massive supporters of cryptocurrency startups, as have YC (isnt coinbase their best investment?). Naval, Balajis, Alexis Ohanian. The common thread is crypto. It seems like it is just the HN commenters that don't seem to understand why and still talk about Tulips. Meanwhile reddit is working on community tokens, ebay working on nft listings...

knowaveragejoe 6y ago
The common sentiment on HN with regards to crypto is baffling to me. It's like they stopped paying attention in 2017.