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Feels like part of the culture problem in business of building things just to exit rich, lots of things to me appear that they could have been nice sustainable

Feels like part of the culture problem in business of building things just to exit rich, lots of things to me appear that they could have been nice sustainable businesses (which in my mind net community and cultural health benefits we don't see with acquired or companies that go public and turn to being run like banks). I wish more of the entrepreneurs here valued building something to last not to sell - but it's sort of baked into the silicon valley DNA it seems. Move fast and get acquired/IPO before the loans run out.

potatolicious 3y ago
I share your frustration and agree. I think the last decade+ has been a lost decade for our industry - where we went from producing products people want that are highly profitable, to producing products of either dubious value or money-losing, or both. We've gone from an industry of delivering real, tangible advancements (and the profits it entails) to an industry that largely delivers hot air, and whose primary money-making mechanisms is the pump-and-dump, and absconding with the winnings before the smoke clears. Uber, WeWork, the "metaverse", pretty much the whole of crypto... the list goes on. It's endlessly frustrating, especially because it demonstrates such a cynical view of technology. There's value to be produced! Real products that improve your lives, and make money doing it! We haven't even begun to run up against the limits of what technology can do for people! It's doubly frustrating when certain high-profile people in our industry blame society's "techno-pessimism" for their own failures. They're the ones who funded a decade-long orgy of wasted money shoveled endlessly at an infinite sequence of companies that produced nothing of value. They're the ones who funded pump and dump after pump and dump - and now they're crying foul and claiming that the rest of us are the cynical ones.

potatolicious 3y ago

I share your frustration and agree. I think the last decade+ has been a lost decade for our industry - where we went from producing products people want that are highly profitable, to producing products of either dubious value or money-losing, or both. We've gone from an industry of delivering real, tangible advancements (and the profits it entails) to an industry that largely delivers hot air, and whose primary money-making mechanisms is the pump-and-dump, and absconding with the winnings before the smoke clears. Uber, WeWork, the "metaverse", pretty much the whole of crypto... the list goes on. It's endlessly frustrating, especially because it demonstrates such a cynical view of technology. There's value to be produced! Real products that improve your lives, and make money doing it! We haven't even begun to run up against the limits of what technology can do for people! It's doubly frustrating when certain high-profile people in our industry blame society's "techno-pessimism" for their own failures. They're the ones who funded a decade-long orgy of wasted money shoveled endlessly at an infinite sequence of companies that produced nothing of value. They're the ones who funded pump and dump after pump and dump - and now they're crying foul and claiming that the rest of us are the cynical ones.