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I couldn't find anywhere in the article where it gave an amount of the short position. Did this guy bet the farm on it? If so, he deserves praise (and the retur

I couldn't find anywhere in the article where it gave an amount of the short position. Did this guy bet the farm on it? If so, he deserves praise (and the returns) for his insight. If, on the other hand, this was just one of dozens (or hundreds) of small short positions his fund invested in, then not so much. Anyone can bet small amounts all over the roulette table and then only tell their friends about the ones that won while ignoring all the ones that lost.

silisili 4y ago
It specifically says at the end they refuse to give the amount. Given the research involved, and a well known firm, I'm sure it wasn't pocket change.
- didgetmaster 4y ago
  They might have bet a million dollars on it, but if their normal short position is also around a million dollars, then I am not as impressed. If they wanted to show everyone how smart they were, I expected a quote something like: "We were so confident in our analysis that we invested 10x our normal short position in it!"
  - arez 4y ago
    it's not about being smart or anything, they just explain how they figured it out, doesn't matter how much money they made, that's just focusing on the wrong things
    - kqr 4y ago
      It does matter, because it's very easy to construct an explanation for how you "figured it out" after the fact, if one of your hundred small bets happened to work out. The person doing it may even fool themselves!
  - bredren 4y ago
    There is a reason the interviewee pivots from questions about how big of a take to from the short to the situation “certainly not something to be celebrated.”
cormacrelf 4y ago
Says the commenter in a community for a startup ecosystem where the big money throws a million bucks at a hundred different projects and hails themselves as genius world leaders when one of them doesn’t fail. And where publishing a detailed investment case to be criticised on later is not the norm.
- rlt 4y ago
  HN isn’t a monolith. VCs certainly have the benefit of diversification, but founders generally don’t.

silisili 4y ago

It specifically says at the end they refuse to give the amount. Given the research involved, and a well known firm, I'm sure it wasn't pocket change.

didgetmaster 4y ago
They might have bet a million dollars on it, but if their normal short position is also around a million dollars, then I am not as impressed. If they wanted to show everyone how smart they were, I expected a quote something like: "We were so confident in our analysis that we invested 10x our normal short position in it!"
- arez 4y ago
  it's not about being smart or anything, they just explain how they figured it out, doesn't matter how much money they made, that's just focusing on the wrong things
  - kqr 4y ago
    It does matter, because it's very easy to construct an explanation for how you "figured it out" after the fact, if one of your hundred small bets happened to work out. The person doing it may even fool themselves!
- bredren 4y ago
  There is a reason the interviewee pivots from questions about how big of a take to from the short to the situation “certainly not something to be celebrated.”

cormacrelf 4y ago

Says the commenter in a community for a startup ecosystem where the big money throws a million bucks at a hundred different projects and hails themselves as genius world leaders when one of them doesn’t fail. And where publishing a detailed investment case to be criticised on later is not the norm.

rlt 4y ago
HN isn’t a monolith. VCs certainly have the benefit of diversification, but founders generally don’t.