3 ms·

Quoting the end of you post. > The vast majority is fuelled by litrerally endless investor money with only two modes of operation: corner the market (that is,

by rapsey 5y ago

Quoting the end of you post. > The vast majority is fuelled by litrerally endless investor money with only two modes of operation: corner the market (that is, outlive other competitors who don't have such an unlimited amount of money) or get sold. Yes that is the business model and business is good. As opposed to EU which is a wasteland where nothing grows. Lots of businesses are built to be sold to larger businesses. It makes sense and there is nothing wrong with this model. As for investing in money losing enterprises, so what? If investors are willing to do it let them.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
> Yes that is the business model and business is good. Not necessarily. A "wasteland where nothing grows" is obviously bad, but... there's a reason we don't let nature to optimize crops for growth, nor do we do it ourselves. We grow crops for food. We literally care about the fruits of their labor. And so is with businesses - the social value of a business is in the prosperity it creates for the people. The SV growth model, at the extreme, is overfitting the "growth -> acquisition" path - often creating negative value for the society, by disrupting an existing market with an offering that's too good to be true, subsidized by infinite investor money, and then leaving a gaping void after burning out or getting acquired. This would be like a crop plant that first releases poison into the soil, killing competing crop species, then sucks out all nutrients and dies without producing edible fruit. It's not something you'd like to grow on your field either.
dmitriid 5y ago
> Yes that is the business model and business is good. As opposed to EU which is a wasteland where nothing grows. Endlessly burning through infinite cash isn't a good business model. And it ultimately results in a significantly worse wasteland than the perceived wasteland of Europe. Where in Europe you have lots of companies in lots of different markets, in the US you have continuous price dumping that drives away any and all competition (unless that competition has more infinite money), and preys on people. For example, the explosive growth of gig economy is the direct result of this "good business model". And who woulda thunk it, but predators like Doordash are predictably a "YC Top Company".
- rapsey 5y ago
  > Where in Europe you have lots of companies in lots of different markets In Europe you have lots of companies in lots of limited local markets unable to grow out of them because they have no funding options available to them.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    On limited local markets: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28286789 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28286789

by rapsey 5y ago

TeMPOraL 5y ago

> Yes that is the business model and business is good. Not necessarily. A "wasteland where nothing grows" is obviously bad, but... there's a reason we don't let nature to optimize crops for growth, nor do we do it ourselves. We grow crops for food. We literally care about the fruits of their labor. And so is with businesses - the social value of a business is in the prosperity it creates for the people. The SV growth model, at the extreme, is overfitting the "growth -> acquisition" path - often creating negative value for the society, by disrupting an existing market with an offering that's too good to be true, subsidized by infinite investor money, and then leaving a gaping void after burning out or getting acquired. This would be like a crop plant that first releases poison into the soil, killing competing crop species, then sucks out all nutrients and dies without producing edible fruit. It's not something you'd like to grow on your field either.

dmitriid 5y ago

> Yes that is the business model and business is good. As opposed to EU which is a wasteland where nothing grows. Endlessly burning through infinite cash isn't a good business model. And it ultimately results in a significantly worse wasteland than the perceived wasteland of Europe. Where in Europe you have lots of companies in lots of different markets, in the US you have continuous price dumping that drives away any and all competition (unless that competition has more infinite money), and preys on people. For example, the explosive growth of gig economy is the direct result of this "good business model". And who woulda thunk it, but predators like Doordash are predictably a "YC Top Company".

rapsey 5y ago
> Where in Europe you have lots of companies in lots of different markets In Europe you have lots of companies in lots of limited local markets unable to grow out of them because they have no funding options available to them.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  On limited local markets: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28286789 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28286789