3 ms·

> The company spent a lot of money on marketing events including sponsorship deals with the Tampa Bay Lightning and the rumored million dollar concert by the Ch

> The company spent a lot of money on marketing events including sponsorship deals with the Tampa Bay Lightning and the rumored million dollar concert by the Chain Smokers here we go, this is late 90s all over again

throwmeariver1 5y ago
You think we get parties with Kid Rock again?
- relaxing 5y ago
  These days? Sure, an appearance by Kid Rock is much more affordable.
RC_ITR 5y ago
This is such a revealing comment and here's why: The reason late 90's start-ups invested the way they did is because they had no meaningful way to track the effectiveness of their ads, much less the payback. A Super Bowl ad for Pets.com seems fine if you can (more or less) guess that it adds a bunch of customers. Since then, start-ups have built a bunch of tools to track customer acquisition costs and paybacks in a pretty sophisticated way, and some of the obviously crazier ads dies (or at least become more one-off). But now we are in a fintech/crypto era and nobody really knows how to calculate paybacks once again, because the business model is so new vs. a traditional ads or commerce business (will this new crypto.com user do $1k of transaction volume every year for the next ten? sure why not?) As a result of all this, we see crazy 'spaghetti on the wall' style advertising again, usually focused in the crypto/fintech space (See: this year's Super Bowl). I wonder when the music stops.
- dinvlad 5y ago
  Worth adding AI to this list :-)
- tomatowurst 5y ago
  Very good point and you are not alone seeing the deja vu Remember beanie babies? We call them NFTs today. Remember HYIP and e-gold? We call them cryptocurrencies now. The point is that crowd behavior, especially markets driven by envy & greed, lead to the same outcome. every. single. time. this is why guys like Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger keep making money.
  - nailer 5y ago
    Beanie babies aren’t scarce and can only be produced by a single company.
    - tomatowurst 5y ago
      neither is right clicking on a jpeg and saving it
      - nailer 5y ago
        Neither is photographing the Mona Lisa.
- Apocryphon 5y ago
  The music stops when the Fed tells it to. When interest rates rise appreciably.
- henrikschroder 5y ago
  > I wonder when the music stops. Who cares? Champagne on the Concord, and let's order a bunch of Starfire servers from Sun Microsystems!
  - mwcampbell 5y ago
    > let's order a bunch of Starfire servers from Sun Microsystems! I wonder if any doomed startups will order a rack from Oxide Computer. I hope Oxide's primary customer base is established companies that actually need serious efficiency at scale.
    - Nextgrid 5y ago
      Does it matter? If there's an infinite supply of VC-funded startups it doesn't matter whether those startups ultimately succeed - Oxide gets paid upfront either way. If anything, companies burning money by buying your stuff for hype reasons without actually making much use of it is probably better with regards to support queries/warranty claims than those actually making serious use of the equipment.

throwmeariver1 5y ago

You think we get parties with Kid Rock again?

relaxing 5y ago
These days? Sure, an appearance by Kid Rock is much more affordable.

RC_ITR 5y ago

This is such a revealing comment and here's why: The reason late 90's start-ups invested the way they did is because they had no meaningful way to track the effectiveness of their ads, much less the payback. A Super Bowl ad for Pets.com seems fine if you can (more or less) guess that it adds a bunch of customers. Since then, start-ups have built a bunch of tools to track customer acquisition costs and paybacks in a pretty sophisticated way, and some of the obviously crazier ads dies (or at least become more one-off). But now we are in a fintech/crypto era and nobody really knows how to calculate paybacks once again, because the business model is so new vs. a traditional ads or commerce business (will this new crypto.com user do $1k of transaction volume every year for the next ten? sure why not?) As a result of all this, we see crazy 'spaghetti on the wall' style advertising again, usually focused in the crypto/fintech space (See: this year's Super Bowl). I wonder when the music stops.

dinvlad 5y ago
Worth adding AI to this list :-)
tomatowurst 5y ago
Very good point and you are not alone seeing the deja vu Remember beanie babies? We call them NFTs today. Remember HYIP and e-gold? We call them cryptocurrencies now. The point is that crowd behavior, especially markets driven by envy & greed, lead to the same outcome. every. single. time. this is why guys like Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger keep making money.
- nailer 5y ago
  Beanie babies aren’t scarce and can only be produced by a single company.
  - tomatowurst 5y ago
    neither is right clicking on a jpeg and saving it
    - nailer 5y ago
      Neither is photographing the Mona Lisa.
Apocryphon 5y ago
The music stops when the Fed tells it to. When interest rates rise appreciably.
henrikschroder 5y ago
> I wonder when the music stops. Who cares? Champagne on the Concord, and let's order a bunch of Starfire servers from Sun Microsystems!
- mwcampbell 5y ago
  > let's order a bunch of Starfire servers from Sun Microsystems! I wonder if any doomed startups will order a rack from Oxide Computer. I hope Oxide's primary customer base is established companies that actually need serious efficiency at scale.
  - Nextgrid 5y ago
    Does it matter? If there's an infinite supply of VC-funded startups it doesn't matter whether those startups ultimately succeed - Oxide gets paid upfront either way. If anything, companies burning money by buying your stuff for hype reasons without actually making much use of it is probably better with regards to support queries/warranty claims than those actually making serious use of the equipment.