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The "problem" is we really are in an technology revolution similar to the industrial revolution 200-300 years ago. For every 100 tech startup businesses that d

The "problem" is we really are in an technology revolution similar to the industrial revolution 200-300 years ago. For every 100 tech startup businesses that don't generate a penny of profit and are propped up by hyper valuations and stock prices, there are companies like Facebook and Google and Apple that absolutely print money in profits. That in turn covers the outlay by venture money. All those companies that burn money in fire pits are essentially subsidized by the staggering amount of money that some new companies only recently formed in the past 20 years are printing. Spray and pray and see what sticks for investors will work in this type of rapid revolutionary environment.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
All the companies that have stellar net incomes and profit margins are more than 20 years old, except Meta which is about to turn 20 in a couple years. The crop that came after that (Uber/Airbnb/Snap/etc) do not show the same, except maybe Bytedance, but their numbers are not public.
- dghlsakjg 3y ago
  That might be a side effect of destroying competition and vc exit strategy through acquisition. YouTube, instagram, Slack, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, etc. all second generation software that companies that were acquired by bigger companies as exits, or to squelch competition.
mnky9800n 3y ago
What technology has come out in the last decade that isn't an increment or miniaturization?
- prepend 3y ago
  The revolution we Ade still in is the transistor and it started 60 years ago and probably has 40 years left to go.
- blantonl 3y ago
  I would argue that the mobile communications device called the "iPhone" is one of the most significant technology innovations developed in the past 100 years. Love it, hate it, whatever, but it completely revolutionized what is practically access to "everything". You will be hard pressed to find an American consumer, from the richest guy to homeless people on the street that don't have a mobile communications device on their person with a touch screen and instant access to the collective works of the world. The iPhone by itself as a stand alone business would be larger than Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and McDonalds among other revolutionary businesses.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    The iPhone is 15 years old, so it wasn't in the last decade.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      No. But ubiquity and smartphones being just part of the fabric of everyday life comes pretty close to squeezing into the last decade. I didn't have one until probably 2011 (iPhone 3GS) and I'm not really a technology laggard.
      - bombcar 3y ago
        The always on always online computer in your pocket changed things for sure - and perhaps it was the Internet finally coming into its own. Maybe (maybe) ChatGPT will do something similarly transformative (I’m sus as the kids say).
        ghaff 3y ago
        From the perspective of today, the dot-com era wasn't really that different from before from the perspective of consumers. OK, e-commerce was gearing up but it's not like we didn't have mail order catalogs before. Many of us had feature phones but didn't use them a lot; you were mostly still tethered to a desktop of maybe laptop. Online information could still be pretty sparse for many things. Not really any streaming entertainment. Etc.
- mellosouls 3y ago
  GPT! We are in a transformative moment right now with GPT3 onwards, as great as anything in the computer era.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    While possible, I'm not ready to put all my chips on that particular bet yet.
    - tsunamifury 3y ago
      Hacker news in the iPhone launch was a riot.
  - SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
    Agreed that AI is transformative. That this for kids they grew up with the internet is their epoch moment that those of us they saw the internet come already had. However… I don’t think it counts exactly. When you look at the trillions that have been dumped into basically “ take the best and brightest in the world, and then get them to increase advertising performance by 1% a year” and the money effort and time put into AI, thst the big players were caught completely off guard by AI, it’s more of a mistake than an organic technology evolution. Other than AI, what seriously happened in the last decade? Where in terms of user product has tech innovated?
    - ghaff 3y ago
      It's just "boring plumbing" but software server infrastructure (containers, Kubernetes, and everything cloud-native associated) has basically competely changed in the last 10 years.
      - disgruntledphd2 3y ago
        Being able to rent computers by the hour was definitely a big change.
        3y ago
- russ 3y ago
  Might be just over a decade, but how about the Oculus Rift DK1?
- MajimasEyepatch 3y ago
  mRNA vaccines are a huge deal. I don’t think it would be fair to call them incremental.
- badpun 3y ago
  Fracking? Might be slightly older than last decade though.
Mistletoe 3y ago
What if we have exited that tech revolution era already? I don’t recall a lot of successful tech innovation or revolution in the last decade but I recall a lot of scams. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/froth.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/froth.asp And now we are about to get AI froth that will follow the same Gartner hype cycle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle I wonder where you guys would place us now? I’d say Peak of Inflated Expectations since every other story on HN is about AI or large language models.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
  Isn’t a number of scams almost tied to the era of free money as well?

lotsofpulp 3y ago

All the companies that have stellar net incomes and profit margins are more than 20 years old, except Meta which is about to turn 20 in a couple years. The crop that came after that (Uber/Airbnb/Snap/etc) do not show the same, except maybe Bytedance, but their numbers are not public.

dghlsakjg 3y ago
That might be a side effect of destroying competition and vc exit strategy through acquisition. YouTube, instagram, Slack, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, etc. all second generation software that companies that were acquired by bigger companies as exits, or to squelch competition.

mnky9800n 3y ago

What technology has come out in the last decade that isn't an increment or miniaturization?

prepend 3y ago
The revolution we Ade still in is the transistor and it started 60 years ago and probably has 40 years left to go.
blantonl 3y ago
I would argue that the mobile communications device called the "iPhone" is one of the most significant technology innovations developed in the past 100 years. Love it, hate it, whatever, but it completely revolutionized what is practically access to "everything". You will be hard pressed to find an American consumer, from the richest guy to homeless people on the street that don't have a mobile communications device on their person with a touch screen and instant access to the collective works of the world. The iPhone by itself as a stand alone business would be larger than Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and McDonalds among other revolutionary businesses.
- bombcar 3y ago
  The iPhone is 15 years old, so it wasn't in the last decade.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    No. But ubiquity and smartphones being just part of the fabric of everyday life comes pretty close to squeezing into the last decade. I didn't have one until probably 2011 (iPhone 3GS) and I'm not really a technology laggard.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      The always on always online computer in your pocket changed things for sure - and perhaps it was the Internet finally coming into its own. Maybe (maybe) ChatGPT will do something similarly transformative (I’m sus as the kids say).
      - ghaff 3y ago
        From the perspective of today, the dot-com era wasn't really that different from before from the perspective of consumers. OK, e-commerce was gearing up but it's not like we didn't have mail order catalogs before. Many of us had feature phones but didn't use them a lot; you were mostly still tethered to a desktop of maybe laptop. Online information could still be pretty sparse for many things. Not really any streaming entertainment. Etc.
mellosouls 3y ago
GPT! We are in a transformative moment right now with GPT3 onwards, as great as anything in the computer era.
- ghaff 3y ago
  While possible, I'm not ready to put all my chips on that particular bet yet.
  - tsunamifury 3y ago
    Hacker news in the iPhone launch was a riot.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
  Agreed that AI is transformative. That this for kids they grew up with the internet is their epoch moment that those of us they saw the internet come already had. However… I don’t think it counts exactly. When you look at the trillions that have been dumped into basically “ take the best and brightest in the world, and then get them to increase advertising performance by 1% a year” and the money effort and time put into AI, thst the big players were caught completely off guard by AI, it’s more of a mistake than an organic technology evolution. Other than AI, what seriously happened in the last decade? Where in terms of user product has tech innovated?
  - ghaff 3y ago
    It's just "boring plumbing" but software server infrastructure (containers, Kubernetes, and everything cloud-native associated) has basically competely changed in the last 10 years.
    - disgruntledphd2 3y ago
      Being able to rent computers by the hour was definitely a big change.
      - 3y ago
russ 3y ago
Might be just over a decade, but how about the Oculus Rift DK1?
MajimasEyepatch 3y ago
mRNA vaccines are a huge deal. I don’t think it would be fair to call them incremental.
badpun 3y ago
Fracking? Might be slightly older than last decade though.

Mistletoe 3y ago

What if we have exited that tech revolution era already? I don’t recall a lot of successful tech innovation or revolution in the last decade but I recall a lot of scams. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/froth.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/f/froth.asp And now we are about to get AI froth that will follow the same Gartner hype cycle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gartner_hype_cycle I wonder where you guys would place us now? I’d say Peak of Inflated Expectations since every other story on HN is about AI or large language models.

SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
Isn’t a number of scams almost tied to the era of free money as well?