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Venture capital's failure to address this flaw in the past 3 decades has basically soured everyone - the fact that it's a great tool for handling high risk ende
by dluan 3y ago
Venture capital's failure to address this flaw in the past 3 decades has basically soured everyone - the fact that it's a great tool for handling high risk endeavors, and also happens to be an even better tool for finding and establishing monopoly. There's a very big blurry zone between the first check in the startup and the last check before IPO where this goal becomes more and more explicit. And eventually it gets to a point where it's like cancer, where monopoly only exists to ensure its own existence and starts to suffocate everything else around it.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoWhat monopolies have emerged out of venture capital in the last 3 decades? In any industry?
- dluan 3y agoI am honestly not that surprised anymore to see that HN commenters don't remember Microsoft or Oracle antitrust suits, or how Twitter rose to prominence, or etc x 1000. Laughable.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoWhy use an ad-hominem that can only discredit the writer, 'dluan'? It seems silly to waste reputation on something so menial.
- dluan 3y agoIt's not an ad-hom to point out that "Hacker News" used to be populated by Hackers, who maintained an ethos of trying to take on unfair players. Maybe it was too long ago.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoIf someone calls your commenting 'Laughable' that's not an ad-hominem? Even under the most generous reading, if you want to make a point, then adding random noise isn't going to help.
- worik 3y ago> What monopolies have emerged out of venture capital in the last 3 decades? In any industry? * Google with ad-tech * Amazon ecomerce * There is a beer oligopoly with four breweries and > 90% market between them * In mu country there is a duopoly of supermarkets That is off the top of my head.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoGoogle doesn't even have 50% of the online ad market. Nor does Amazon even have 50% of the e-commerce market... It's like saying Boeing has a monopoly on airplanes, when actually they can be said to have a local monopoly within a few hundred km of Seattle.
- worik 3y ago> Google doesn't even have 50% of the online ad market IIRC Google controls about 90% of the online ad market out side the walled gardens like Facebook.
- fzeroracer 3y agoAmazon absolutely does have a monopoly, which has been evident in how their free shipping guarantee has warped prices to factor in the cost of shipping as a hidden fee (see: previous discussion [1]) across the board. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27333933 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27333933
- MichaelZuo 3y agoThis doesn't prove that whatsoever. If you believe it constitutes as proof then can you demonstrate the line of reasoning?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- AlbertCory 3y agoPlaying with words. Amazon has absolutely dominant power, as does Google. Boeing has a worldwide duopoly. It's inconceivable that any forum dominantly by Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet/Google, Amazon, Meta/Facebook, Eli Lilly, Visa, Novo Nordisk, Walmart, ExxonMobil, JP Morgan Chase, Johnson and Johnson, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton and Saudi Basic Industries (SABIC) is ever going to propose anything to threaten that power.
- csa 3y ago> What monopolies have emerged out of venture capital in the last 3 decades? In any industry? I think you may be nitpicking more than necessary here. If you change it from “monopoly” to “dominant player” or “duopoly”, then there are many candidates, and ones which are (imho) causing problems: - Google with search, with Bing a distant second, and Kagi and DDG being whatever. - Google with user-created video via YT. TikTok has created a space for itself (so duopoly?), but YT is the elephant in the room for video. - Amazon (various parts), with Walmart trying to figure out how to compete. - AirBnB, with VRBO being a distant second. - Facebook… FACEBOOK!!! It may have competitors, but it is the only dominant player in its section of social media. Ditto with IG. - Uber, with Lyft being likely a permanent second (if it is able to continue existing). As someone who has done business with Amazon, Google search/ads, Google YT, and FB, I will just say that they don’t really act like they are threatened by any competition — they are more scared of government interference/regulation. The efficiency of rent-seeking on their platforms is both impressive and appalling. I’m not sure what the solution is, but I’m guessing that they will be whacked with the regulation hammer in some way due to having too much unilateral sway on business interactions. As a simple example of what it might look like, the US federal government knows that it has a lot of potential power in contract negotiations, so it puts a lot of rules on itself so that it’s much more difficult for that power to be abused.
- a_gnostic 3y agoAbolish IP, enforce NDAs, and the problem is solved.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- MichaelZuo 3y agoI didn't comment on the categories of “dominant player” or “duopoly" ? If you want to make a point about this instead, related topics, which companies fall into these buckets, etc., that's fine. But there's no need to disguise it.
- csa 3y ago