5 ms·
This is a kind of writing I think of as Silicon Valley mythos - in it, a plucky entrepreneur, a lucky angel investor and a hacker get together, and fail their w
by vessenes 5y ago
This is a kind of writing I think of as Silicon Valley mythos - in it, a plucky entrepreneur, a lucky angel investor and a hacker get together, and fail their way into an IPO. At the end they tell the reader he just needs to believe in himself more, and the SV myth will come true for him.
There’s a lot of hate in the comments here, but I am personally more equivocal - it is definitely true that absolutely no centimillion or billion dollar companies get founded by people that refuse to found companies. And, I think the real moral of the story - persist and get lucky with a good team and a good market angle at the right time - is a very potent moral.
But, I prefer the grittier SV myth stories a-la Ben Horowitz which mention all the times you’re vomiting in your bathroom worried about making payroll and fighting with your co-founders while your spouse is like “so, about that day job..” - I’m not sure there’s any company that gets truly valuable without some very difficult times.
- ukoki 5y ago> centimillion hectomillion, surely :) ? https://www.nist.gov/pml/weights-and-measures/metric-si-prefixes https://www.nist.gov/pml/weights-and-measures/metric-si-pref...
- vessenes 5y agoSlip of the mind, surely! :)
- project2501a 5y agoYeah, this is the bulls^H^H^H^H^Hstory that perpetuates that mythos, too. > persist and get lucky with a good team and a good market angle at the right time - is a very potent moral. What we should take away is that there is money to be wasted. A lot of money (which is not going into employees pockets). If someone was willing to give a billion dollars for a press of a bag of juice that could be squeezed by hand, a useless product, imagine what can be had if you have an actual product.
- AbrahamParangi 5y agoA tangent but I think it is a useful behavior to never assume people are stupid or crazy (even if they obviously must be sometimes). The reason is that it’s at best uninformative and at worst just plain wrong. Instead I would suggest imagining that people are perfectly rational within the limits of their information and ability to reason, and consider what beliefs they could have had that motivated their behavior.
- project2501a 5y agoAbsolutely, people are def not stupid. I am just commenting on the greed of capitalists that manifests in throwing around millions and billions of dollars.
- bob33212 5y agoPersistent people are much more likely to ignore their misses and focus on their hits. Someone that hits 10M in revenue may have pivoted multiple times when they were below 1k in revenue trying to get traction. They probably don't even see it as a pivot, they have forgotten about the sales pitches that totally fell flat, and remember the times that a customer said "Could you also do X, we really need that"
- anonymouse008 5y agoWhole heartedly agree -- though too long in this desert without the savory success can make one feel like they're going mad. Too many times I've found comfort from laying prone on a hard wood floor... I'm not asking to remove the stress completely - it would just be nice to feel like I can afford a small nap pad underneath me.
- sjg007 5y ago>I prefer the grittier SV myth stories a-la Ben Horowitz which mention all the times you’re vomiting in your bathroom... "There were so many depressing nights alone that often I would watch my favorite movie, The Shawshank Redemption, over and over, mindlessly."
- cyanydeez 5y agoevery sewage system has a diamond ring somewhere in it, and everyone thinks when itsmfound, that proves the market for diamond rings