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1) Replit is far from commercially successful relative to capital raised 2) The market demand for dramatically more accessible software development tools (more

1) Replit is far from commercially successful relative to capital raised 2) The market demand for dramatically more accessible software development tools (more economical product development) is essentially unbounded 3) Replit has produced a marginal change in the frontier of accessibility, at unknown unit economics 4) What would a discontinuous change (step change) in accessibility look like? Side note, ZIRP and AI have really muddied the waters here. ZIRP means we still don't know yet which companies are zombies. The AI claim is that product development will soon be decoupled from the economics of human coding. Neither of these issues are likely to be conclusively resolved for another few years (we can all place our own bets). Replit is deeply rooted in both.

ericjmorey 3y ago
ZIRP is in the past. We've seen a lot of outfall from this already.
- dustingetz 3y ago
  we've hardly seen anything yet, ZIRP has second and third order effects which will take years, a decade, to shake out. Early stage startups are only just beginning to run out of cash (after layoffs and tightening last year), the Great Flushing hasn't even started! And that's just early stage, anyone who raised from a superfund 2 years ago still has 4-5 years runway in the bank after the 50% layoffs this year. These entrepreneurs, and their backers, may not even have realized yet that they themselves, their having been selected, their very existence are in fact ZIRP artifacts. They still think their valuation is real, and that they earned it!
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Agreed. First was "Will your company fold in the next 6 months, now that you no longer have free money?" Now it's likely more "What is your growth efficiency (dollar:growth) in a capital-constrained environment?" And we're going to see more and more capital sucked back into debt service, as financing comes due and is reestablished. Which will snowball the terms for any companies which require capital infusion ASAP. It'll be curious if the Berkshire Hathaway model of coupling low-growth, good cash-flow businesses to high-growth, bad cash-flow engines becomes dominantly competitive again.

ericjmorey 3y ago

ZIRP is in the past. We've seen a lot of outfall from this already.

dustingetz 3y ago
we've hardly seen anything yet, ZIRP has second and third order effects which will take years, a decade, to shake out. Early stage startups are only just beginning to run out of cash (after layoffs and tightening last year), the Great Flushing hasn't even started! And that's just early stage, anyone who raised from a superfund 2 years ago still has 4-5 years runway in the bank after the 50% layoffs this year. These entrepreneurs, and their backers, may not even have realized yet that they themselves, their having been selected, their very existence are in fact ZIRP artifacts. They still think their valuation is real, and that they earned it!
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Agreed. First was "Will your company fold in the next 6 months, now that you no longer have free money?" Now it's likely more "What is your growth efficiency (dollar:growth) in a capital-constrained environment?" And we're going to see more and more capital sucked back into debt service, as financing comes due and is reestablished. Which will snowball the terms for any companies which require capital infusion ASAP. It'll be curious if the Berkshire Hathaway model of coupling low-growth, good cash-flow businesses to high-growth, bad cash-flow engines becomes dominantly competitive again.