9 ms·

The mystery of the garage

59 points by HR01 3y ago

grungydan 3y ago
[flagged]
- CapitalistCartr 3y ago
  An article about successful start-ups started in garages is going to mention billionaires. That's hardly worshiping. The focus is on garages' role in founding.
- jjulius 3y ago
  The opening reads more like factual statements to me, I don't really see anything that I would consider "nonsense billionaire-worship propaganda" (and I say this as someone who is generally pretty "eat the rich"). Would you care to quote a passage or two that you think reflects that statement?
AlbertCory 3y ago
on General Magic: > But despite all the talent, clear obsession, technical prowess, and a lot of money, the infrastructure just wasn’t there to make it work. Almost everyone was trying to make a handheld device then, and by the time Palm came along, the category was cursed as far as VC's were concerned. The infrastructure WAS there, as Palm proved. You just had to scale down your expectations and find a set of functionality people actually wanted. You also needed to give up on cursive recognition and trust that the users would learn a simpler method of entering text. The monster egos in General Magic just refused to do that, as did their big corporate partners, and all the other failed startups.
- ghaff 3y ago
  Arguably, a lot of pieces were still missing at the time. Yes, Palm had a large enough early adopter market. But I also remember the Palm Pilot being the cool device all the engineers wanted but a lot of people stopped using it because keeping it synced in near-realtime was such a pain. It really took cellular betworks with relatively cheap data (and app stores) to bring the vision to fruition.
  - AlbertCory 3y ago
    No, it didn't. Read Piloting Palm (you have to get a used copy, since it's not on Kindle and print is expensive). The first Palm had only a sync cradle with the PC. It did not have any wireless, and it was a huge success. The sync cradle gave users what they wanted. We could quibble whether all those users were "early adopters." Whatever you call them, there were plenty.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Compared to smartphone users, they were very much early adopters. No wireless sync, graffiti input, etc. They were not really mainstream devices even if they were pretty successful by the standards of the time.
      - AlbertCory 3y ago
        Invalid comparison. There were no smartphones then. The market was desktop computer users.
        ghaff 3y ago
        And my point is that, as a Palm Pilot owner, it just wasn't really a very satisfactory solution at least for me and a lot of other buyers. It really took cellular networks and various other innovations before it was satisfactory for a mainstream audience. Sometimes technologies just aren't baked enough to be interesting even if there aren't any real alternatives.
        Retric 3y ago
        They sold 1 million of the things in a year. The device had plenty of flaws, but by the millionth customer products are mainstream.
        ghaff 3y ago
        I won't seriously argue. They had a good enough run. I even upgraded the one I got for free at a tradeshow at one point. But the synchronization and input was always enough of an issue that I can't say I ever found it all that useful in retrospect. And it always seemed to be in the "cool gadget" but not anything that was really critical.
Metacelsus 3y ago
Now, with housing prices going through the roof, how many would-be founders actually have a garage or basement in which to tinker?
- ghaff 3y ago
  Many people who don't live close into one of the handful of favored metros.
  - GuB-42 3y ago
    If the goal is to have cheap, dedicated space where you can build stuff, it probably makes a lot more sense to buy an old but sizable house, with land, in a remote place. These are cheaper than garages, and no one will be there to complain about the noise, or how bad your activity looks to the neighborhood. The cost of living tends to be cheaper than in metro areas too. There are drawbacks too, but it is not like you are going to commute, so one of the biggest one is out. For internet and utilities, some remote places are remarkably well served. Now, if you are doing software, you don't need any of that, all you need is a computer and you can do it from your bedroom.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      You don't even need to live in the mountains of Wyoming or wherever. I live about an hour west of Boston and have a 2-car garage and plenty of space for hobbies in a location that is not particularly expensive.
    - bluGill 3y ago
      You need to live, for most of us that means more than whatever hacking we are doing in our garage/shed. If you have independent wealth and no family moving to a cheap area might be a good option. However if you need a job to support yourself where you live must be in range of that job (though many reading this are able to work from home, most of the world cannot). Family means your spouse - where does she/he need to be for work - this limits where you can live just as much (and if both of you have to go to work what jobs both of you can take) . You can force move your kids to a rural area but they will not be happy about losing all their friends (many do this anyway, but it should be a consideration even if you do it to them. Family also means extended family - where does your sister, parents, in-laws live - moving away from them is hard. Likewise everything about family and your kids friends applies to your friends - do you really want to move away from them? There is also safety - the cheap side of town is often cheap for a reason, do you want to wear a bulletproof vest around all the time? So realistically: cannot move to a cheap house on some land.
lsy 3y ago
The 2nd episode of Stewart Brand’s BBC series “How Buildings Learn” is called “The Low Road” and also addresses the use of inexpensive or undesirable space. Ultimately part of making room for innovation means allowing people to take risks, and that mechanism has in recent years shifted from wide availability of low-cost resources to wide availability of speculative capital to obtain high-cost resources.
chrisdhoover 3y ago
And a whole genre of music is named after the garage practice space.
- cdchn 3y ago
  And before they started turning into luxury "loft" apartments disused factories/warehouses were perfect environments to set up micro "practice spaces."
- cookie_monsta 3y ago
  I don't know if it's so much a genre of music as a status designation. "Garage band" to me says an outfit so far from being successful that they can't afford rehearsal space, transport to get to one, etc
  - OJFord 3y ago
    No 'garage' is also a music genre. I'm not into music really (certainly not that kind) but I think it's in some way related to but to mark distinction from 'house'. Of course funnily enough 'the house band' could also be a thing, but neither is related to the genre of that name. Edit: oh, seems it's a UK thing, so perhaps you weren't to know - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_garage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_garage. Though also older 'garage rock' (60s) on the disambiguation page.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      In the US “house” usually refers to the venue - house wine, house band, etc means that supplied by the hotel. You rent a ballroom, you want a band, the hotel can provide the house version, kind of generic.
      - snypher 3y ago
        Funny that the house band probably wouldn't play house music.
      - OJFord 3y ago
radicaldreamer 3y ago
This might contribute in a big way to the economic dynamism and entrepreneurship culture of the United States (and not just in tech/silicon valley). The garage (and excess/sub-standard space generally) is a big component of American housing and explicitly included in houses and touted as a selling point. Not true in Europe and other parts of the world, where excess space can be a rarity or is improved to be living area.
- bombcar 3y ago
  It’s particular to a portion of the US - in the northern Midwest garages are used for the cars. In the south? Not as necessary.
aurizon 3y ago
The Wrights are a bad example, being classical patent trolls - they held back US aviation so severely that the UK and Europe were able to leave the USA in the dust. Wright would not allow use or experimentation before an agreement was signed and this blocked all but military(with their mandated exemption re: Patents) who imported European/UK planes were able to progress, but commercial aviation was dead in the water. Once the patents expired the USA soared ahead... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  > classical patent trolls No, a "patent troll" is an entity that doesn't produce anything. Not one that actually developed things. They did exploit their patents, but that was hardly unusual at the time. Henry Ford, in fact, was a victim of that, too, although obviously he overcame it.
  - aurizon 3y ago
    Once they started trolling, they stopped making planes, it was only after the patents expired and the founders left the business and they merged with curtis and a rational patent pooling system emerged that US aviation surged ahead. Radio was much the same, and they eventually used pools in the same way. I am not sure if the USA can repair their system, as it feeds and sustains a huge swarm of parasites, much like the US medical system
    - bombcar 3y ago
      This basic same scenario is currently happening with SawStop safety saws, but at least SawStop is manufacturing saws.
      - aurizon 3y ago
        I see, they are trying to force a lot of shops/schools to buy them - they are $500-800 more than comparable risky saws. I wonder if they will try for it on hand held rotary saws? Hopefully an alternate method will emerge. Even if I had one, I would never use it as I practice great care anyway.
Isamu 3y ago
It’s mysterious only if you subscribe to some myth of capitalist supremacy, that is that nothing starts without capital. Everyone is powerless because they lack the levers of capital. When in fact many starts are without capital, outside of it, in cheap spaces and without any permission. There is a bootstrapping that happens to develop the idea or product. Capital can be then dragged in to finance the growth necessary to reach the goal of the organization. Capital is shy, a risk averse creature that must be coaxed into supporting the next important boom.
esafak 3y ago
A garage is just an office for people who can't afford one yet. Let's not overthink this.
- favourable 3y ago
  They're sometimes called 'home labs' too.
didgetmaster 3y ago
My wife asked me why I didn't throw out my old computer that I started coding my hobby project on years ago (a new kind of data management system). The computer is hopelessly outdated (a core2 duo) so I never use it anymore and the thrift store won't even take stuff like that as a donation. I explained to her that it could be very valuable someday or used as a museum piece once my system is widely adopted and changes the world. I don't think she bought that argument.
- favourable 3y ago
  > I explained to her that it could be very valuable someday https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/17/first-generation-apple-iphone-sells-auction-in-us https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/17/first-gen...
- ghaff 3y ago
  I've thrown out or recycled many hundreds of pounds of computer equipment over the years. Even if I were able to pass it on to someone who briefly appreciated it, it's not worth it.
- dboreham 3y ago
  You can always buy stuff back on eBay when it starts to become not junk but before it's super valuable. I have a KIM-1, AIM-65, HP-85, PDP-11/23 bought in the last couple of years on that basis. We're a few decades away from a Core 2 Duo being not junk.
  - didgetmaster 3y ago
    I guess my joke about this vanilla computer being the one used to start developing my yet to be discovered 'Earth shattering' software system didn't go over like I planned.
- bluGill 3y ago
  Why do you think it will be valuable? Some old things are junk that nobody wants. Some are valuable. There is no way to know which is what.
photochemsyn 3y ago
Here's a nice guide to home-garage-level designing and prototyping of electronic devices: https://predictabledesigns.com/how-to-develop-and-prototype-a-new-product/ https://predictabledesigns.com/how-to-develop-and-prototype-... Note however that the post-design prototyping stage is all done with off-the-shelf boards and similar components, there are no recommendations for developing surface mount soldering skills [1] or home semiconductor fabs[2], which are indeed cool but more in the hobby/art space. (look up 'surface mount assembly' on YT for why, e.g. Bittele) [1] https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/a-beginners-guide-to-soldering-surface-mount-components/ https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/a-beginners-guide-to... [2] https://www.wired.com/story/22-year-old-builds-chips-parents-garage/ https://www.wired.com/story/22-year-old-builds-chips-parents...
GnarfGnarf 3y ago
It's the only place in the house where the wife can't harass her husband to tidy up.
- tfandango 3y ago
  In fact that's where the wife puts the stuff she doesn't know what to do with.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Like the husband.
  - GianFabien 3y ago
    In our household it is where I put stuff that the wife doesn't want in the house and I'm loathe to throw away.
graycat 3y ago
For the original post (OP): Didn't see any mention of market. Hard work, youth, talent, dreams, obsession, dedication, novelty, risk taking, and an available empty garage -- these don't mean that there is or will be a market. No market, no successful company. As I read the OP, all or nearly all the successes had two things in common but not mentioned: (1) There was a market or nearly so; i.e., there was a nascent market. Plenty of people wanted the product or soon would after seeing it. (2) Not only was there at least a nascent market, due to various external circumstances, that market was growing quickly. Exercise: Ford cars? NYC had lots of horses and, thus, some very dirty streets. Cars didn't poop. Out in the country, a Model T was a better way to get to the retail stores in the nearest town than horse power. "External circumstances:" The oil industry was ready to supply gasoline and lubrication. The oil industry? The steamship Titanic was powered by oil. Wars, which wanted motor powered vehicles. Google? The Internet was exploding in bytes per second, users, uses, revenue, .... For many parts, especially social media, and as a whole, the Internet had a gravitational effect, i.e., the bigger it became, the faster it grew in, e.g., number of new users, revenue, ..., per month. So, quickly there became a need for Internet (Web) search, and Google grew. Facebook? As in the movie The Social Network, the small start of Hot or Not at Harvard spread quickly among universities and then, as it became social with the gravitational effect, had explosively rapid growth and, thus, both contributed to and benefited from the gravitational effect in general of the Web, Internet, microprocessor based computing, etc. Boeing? From cars, gasoline engine technology to power the airplanes. Wars for a market. Planes that could take off and land on water -- the planes didn't need airports and provided a faster way to cross oceans. So, in general: The economy moves along and creates a new need, i.e., a nascent market. Some likely new circumstances make it possible to meet this need, make the nascent market real. Then more circumstances make the market grow quickly. Timed just right, not too early, not too late, sometimes even a garage sized startup can meet the need and grow quickly.
karmakaze 3y ago
Woz debunks the started in a garage story[0] > Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says that the notion the great company started in a garage is "a bit of a myth." [0] https://www.cnet.com/culture/woz-no-apple-was-not-started-in-a-garage/ https://www.cnet.com/culture/woz-no-apple-was-not-started-in...
eternityforest 3y ago
I think it's a lot harder to find projects worth doing. You're (probably?) not gonna make the next ASML in a garage. Everything is networked together, a lot of tech is very important to people's lives, and there are fewer repair people. There's a strong incentive to use stuff that's made by the billions and can be replaced tomorrow with Amazon Prime if needed, especially if it comes with lots of cloud value adds. It's hard to find a project that isn't done by 40 people on AliExpress. There's still highly specialized stuff, and things that require breakthroughs in basic science or cost engineering (Someone please make mass spectrometry and XRF a consumer grade thing so we can see what has lead in it!), but for the most part... people who can afford startup products pretty much have everything they need.
- bluGill 3y ago
  Everything builds on everything else. If you want to make a new GPU - you cannot be competitive without a large team and large backing. However there is an ecosystem of GPUs to choose from so if you want to make something that uses a GPU you can just buy one and build it in your garage. 30 years ago you could not have made something that needed a GPU - they didn't exist yet (the forerunners existed at SGI and the like - but they were not affordable) No amount of passion would have got the right brothers of 1850 flying - there was too much about making an airplane that wasn't invented (the ICE engine needed to be developed to enough efficiency, and metals light enough to work needed to exist) However when the metal industry developed eventually metals that can work were available to anyone. Better metals are available to me today, all I'm lacking is an idea/passion for something that is not possible. (though metals of today are not that much better)
- fragmede 3y ago
  It's not ASML, but Sam Zeloof's built ICs in his parents garage. http://sam.zeloof.xyz/ http://sam.zeloof.xyz/
- tim333 3y ago
  There's probably a lot of opportunity at the moment hooking AI stuff together some of which can be done on a small scale. The opportunities are always going to be in new areas where the low hanging fruit hasn't all been picked yet.
tejohnso 3y ago
What stands out to me among the examples is that amazing things can be achieved when a small number of highly motivated (obsessed) people get together in a space with few distractions and plenty of freedom to experiment.
koliber 3y ago
The only obvious conclusion is that to start the next unicorn company you must get access to the best garage possible.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
cobertos 3y ago
If only city ordinances weren't getting more restrictive with time. Would be hard to do some of this stuff today when some cities ban working on your car in your garage.
- hasbot 3y ago
  What are some example cities?
  - Schnitz 3y ago
    And even then, where is it actually being enforced outside an HOA?
    - fragmede 3y ago
      Except, with 80% of new homes having an HOA, who doesn't have one?
    - cobertos 3y ago
      If it's an ordinance and someone complains (or it's one of those narc-y townships using satellite imagery and drone enforcement) then you get an inspection. If you're found in violation you'll get an enforcement notice. It's the one reason I am so nervous about who my neighbors are when doing anything "weird" on a property. The township, city, county, state, whatever jurisdiction it falls under _will_ handle it.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    I don't know cities, but I have seen plenty of HOAs ban it. Usually because there will be one bad apple that makes their home garage into a makeshift auto shop (and it will effect neighbors).
    - mmcgaha 3y ago
      It is explicit in my deed that I cannot run an auto shop on my property. When people make rules and say it is to stop X, I always ask why don't they just make a rule to stop X. I walked away from a rental once because they refused so I lost trust in them.
kloch 3y ago
You don't need a garage. You just need the ability to make things that work. And by "work" I mean actually work, and in a way that others want to use it (an intuitive interface that needs almost no training/explanation helps a lot here). It doesn't have to be polished, pretty, or anywhere near feature complete (see: Apple 1). It just has to pass the "will people actually use this beyond the novelty phase" test. I can't stress enough how important intuitive function is above form at this stage. That's step 1. Step 2 is to have a management team that can effectively monetize that thing and manage the risks (financial/legal/market) that all businesses have to deal with. Engineers are usually not good at these things. I've succeeded at step 1 many times but I'm personally not good at Step 2.
- unstatusthequo 3y ago
  Oh? Where do I put my car so the nightly thugs who see any car on the street tests to see if they’re locked? And if locked but salacious enough, they break the glass. So far for when not garaged, three break ins. $50k equipment lost, plus costs to repair. Garaged? Zero break ins .
  - Turing_Machine 3y ago
    > Oh? Where do I put my car so the nightly thugs Somewhere not in that city, because (despite whatever amenities it might have) your city has been taken over by barbarians. Added bonus: the rent for the garage will be way cheaper.
PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago
The Amazon "garage" in Bellevue WA was not a garage. It had been converted by the owner of the house (Bezos was renting) or the previous owner. It was a normal livable space with windows, wall treatment etc. Yes, once upon a time it had been a garage, but the only thing "special" about the space that has any relationship to its original purpose is that it formed the only space in a typical US residence large enough for 3 people to work in without totally disrupting normal domestic life. If there's mystery or magic to a "garage", that's it. I know this because I worked in that garage until we moved to the so-called Color Tile Building in Seattle.
- bombcar 3y ago
  In certain neighborhoods these are very common, and you can usually start to recognize them - a window a bit closer to the ground, a door at ground level instead of at the top of a short stairs, etc.
Borrible 3y ago
Successful Garage People https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11496136/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11496136/

59 points by HR01 3y ago

grungydan 3y ago

[flagged]

CapitalistCartr 3y ago
An article about successful start-ups started in garages is going to mention billionaires. That's hardly worshiping. The focus is on garages' role in founding.
jjulius 3y ago
The opening reads more like factual statements to me, I don't really see anything that I would consider "nonsense billionaire-worship propaganda" (and I say this as someone who is generally pretty "eat the rich"). Would you care to quote a passage or two that you think reflects that statement?

AlbertCory 3y ago

on General Magic: > But despite all the talent, clear obsession, technical prowess, and a lot of money, the infrastructure just wasn’t there to make it work. Almost everyone was trying to make a handheld device then, and by the time Palm came along, the category was cursed as far as VC's were concerned. The infrastructure WAS there, as Palm proved. You just had to scale down your expectations and find a set of functionality people actually wanted. You also needed to give up on cursive recognition and trust that the users would learn a simpler method of entering text. The monster egos in General Magic just refused to do that, as did their big corporate partners, and all the other failed startups.

ghaff 3y ago
Arguably, a lot of pieces were still missing at the time. Yes, Palm had a large enough early adopter market. But I also remember the Palm Pilot being the cool device all the engineers wanted but a lot of people stopped using it because keeping it synced in near-realtime was such a pain. It really took cellular betworks with relatively cheap data (and app stores) to bring the vision to fruition.
- AlbertCory 3y ago
  No, it didn't. Read Piloting Palm (you have to get a used copy, since it's not on Kindle and print is expensive). The first Palm had only a sync cradle with the PC. It did not have any wireless, and it was a huge success. The sync cradle gave users what they wanted. We could quibble whether all those users were "early adopters." Whatever you call them, there were plenty.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Compared to smartphone users, they were very much early adopters. No wireless sync, graffiti input, etc. They were not really mainstream devices even if they were pretty successful by the standards of the time.
    - AlbertCory 3y ago
      Invalid comparison. There were no smartphones then. The market was desktop computer users.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        And my point is that, as a Palm Pilot owner, it just wasn't really a very satisfactory solution at least for me and a lot of other buyers. It really took cellular networks and various other innovations before it was satisfactory for a mainstream audience. Sometimes technologies just aren't baked enough to be interesting even if there aren't any real alternatives.
        Retric 3y ago
        They sold 1 million of the things in a year. The device had plenty of flaws, but by the millionth customer products are mainstream.
        ghaff 3y ago
        I won't seriously argue. They had a good enough run. I even upgraded the one I got for free at a tradeshow at one point. But the synchronization and input was always enough of an issue that I can't say I ever found it all that useful in retrospect. And it always seemed to be in the "cool gadget" but not anything that was really critical.

Metacelsus 3y ago

Now, with housing prices going through the roof, how many would-be founders actually have a garage or basement in which to tinker?

ghaff 3y ago
Many people who don't live close into one of the handful of favored metros.
- GuB-42 3y ago
  If the goal is to have cheap, dedicated space where you can build stuff, it probably makes a lot more sense to buy an old but sizable house, with land, in a remote place. These are cheaper than garages, and no one will be there to complain about the noise, or how bad your activity looks to the neighborhood. The cost of living tends to be cheaper than in metro areas too. There are drawbacks too, but it is not like you are going to commute, so one of the biggest one is out. For internet and utilities, some remote places are remarkably well served. Now, if you are doing software, you don't need any of that, all you need is a computer and you can do it from your bedroom.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    You don't even need to live in the mountains of Wyoming or wherever. I live about an hour west of Boston and have a 2-car garage and plenty of space for hobbies in a location that is not particularly expensive.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    You need to live, for most of us that means more than whatever hacking we are doing in our garage/shed. If you have independent wealth and no family moving to a cheap area might be a good option. However if you need a job to support yourself where you live must be in range of that job (though many reading this are able to work from home, most of the world cannot). Family means your spouse - where does she/he need to be for work - this limits where you can live just as much (and if both of you have to go to work what jobs both of you can take) . You can force move your kids to a rural area but they will not be happy about losing all their friends (many do this anyway, but it should be a consideration even if you do it to them. Family also means extended family - where does your sister, parents, in-laws live - moving away from them is hard. Likewise everything about family and your kids friends applies to your friends - do you really want to move away from them? There is also safety - the cheap side of town is often cheap for a reason, do you want to wear a bulletproof vest around all the time? So realistically: cannot move to a cheap house on some land.

lsy 3y ago

The 2nd episode of Stewart Brand’s BBC series “How Buildings Learn” is called “The Low Road” and also addresses the use of inexpensive or undesirable space. Ultimately part of making room for innovation means allowing people to take risks, and that mechanism has in recent years shifted from wide availability of low-cost resources to wide availability of speculative capital to obtain high-cost resources.

chrisdhoover 3y ago

And a whole genre of music is named after the garage practice space.

cdchn 3y ago
And before they started turning into luxury "loft" apartments disused factories/warehouses were perfect environments to set up micro "practice spaces."
cookie_monsta 3y ago
I don't know if it's so much a genre of music as a status designation. "Garage band" to me says an outfit so far from being successful that they can't afford rehearsal space, transport to get to one, etc
- OJFord 3y ago
  No 'garage' is also a music genre. I'm not into music really (certainly not that kind) but I think it's in some way related to but to mark distinction from 'house'. Of course funnily enough 'the house band' could also be a thing, but neither is related to the genre of that name. Edit: oh, seems it's a UK thing, so perhaps you weren't to know - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_garage https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UK_garage. Though also older 'garage rock' (60s) on the disambiguation page.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    In the US “house” usually refers to the venue - house wine, house band, etc means that supplied by the hotel. You rent a ballroom, you want a band, the hotel can provide the house version, kind of generic.
    - snypher 3y ago
      Funny that the house band probably wouldn't play house music.
    - OJFord 3y ago

radicaldreamer 3y ago

This might contribute in a big way to the economic dynamism and entrepreneurship culture of the United States (and not just in tech/silicon valley). The garage (and excess/sub-standard space generally) is a big component of American housing and explicitly included in houses and touted as a selling point. Not true in Europe and other parts of the world, where excess space can be a rarity or is improved to be living area.

bombcar 3y ago
It’s particular to a portion of the US - in the northern Midwest garages are used for the cars. In the south? Not as necessary.

aurizon 3y ago

The Wrights are a bad example, being classical patent trolls - they held back US aviation so severely that the UK and Europe were able to leave the USA in the dust. Wright would not allow use or experimentation before an agreement was signed and this blocked all but military(with their mandated exemption re: Patents) who imported European/UK planes were able to progress, but commercial aviation was dead in the water. Once the patents expired the USA soared ahead... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers_patent_war

AlbertCory 3y ago
> classical patent trolls No, a "patent troll" is an entity that doesn't produce anything. Not one that actually developed things. They did exploit their patents, but that was hardly unusual at the time. Henry Ford, in fact, was a victim of that, too, although obviously he overcame it.
- aurizon 3y ago
  Once they started trolling, they stopped making planes, it was only after the patents expired and the founders left the business and they merged with curtis and a rational patent pooling system emerged that US aviation surged ahead. Radio was much the same, and they eventually used pools in the same way. I am not sure if the USA can repair their system, as it feeds and sustains a huge swarm of parasites, much like the US medical system
  - bombcar 3y ago
    This basic same scenario is currently happening with SawStop safety saws, but at least SawStop is manufacturing saws.
    - aurizon 3y ago
      I see, they are trying to force a lot of shops/schools to buy them - they are $500-800 more than comparable risky saws. I wonder if they will try for it on hand held rotary saws? Hopefully an alternate method will emerge. Even if I had one, I would never use it as I practice great care anyway.

Isamu 3y ago

It’s mysterious only if you subscribe to some myth of capitalist supremacy, that is that nothing starts without capital. Everyone is powerless because they lack the levers of capital. When in fact many starts are without capital, outside of it, in cheap spaces and without any permission. There is a bootstrapping that happens to develop the idea or product. Capital can be then dragged in to finance the growth necessary to reach the goal of the organization. Capital is shy, a risk averse creature that must be coaxed into supporting the next important boom.

esafak 3y ago

A garage is just an office for people who can't afford one yet. Let's not overthink this.

favourable 3y ago
They're sometimes called 'home labs' too.

didgetmaster 3y ago

My wife asked me why I didn't throw out my old computer that I started coding my hobby project on years ago (a new kind of data management system). The computer is hopelessly outdated (a core2 duo) so I never use it anymore and the thrift store won't even take stuff like that as a donation. I explained to her that it could be very valuable someday or used as a museum piece once my system is widely adopted and changes the world. I don't think she bought that argument.

favourable 3y ago
> I explained to her that it could be very valuable someday https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/17/first-generation-apple-iphone-sells-auction-in-us https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/17/first-gen...
ghaff 3y ago
I've thrown out or recycled many hundreds of pounds of computer equipment over the years. Even if I were able to pass it on to someone who briefly appreciated it, it's not worth it.
dboreham 3y ago
You can always buy stuff back on eBay when it starts to become not junk but before it's super valuable. I have a KIM-1, AIM-65, HP-85, PDP-11/23 bought in the last couple of years on that basis. We're a few decades away from a Core 2 Duo being not junk.
- didgetmaster 3y ago
  I guess my joke about this vanilla computer being the one used to start developing my yet to be discovered 'Earth shattering' software system didn't go over like I planned.
bluGill 3y ago
Why do you think it will be valuable? Some old things are junk that nobody wants. Some are valuable. There is no way to know which is what.

photochemsyn 3y ago

Here's a nice guide to home-garage-level designing and prototyping of electronic devices: https://predictabledesigns.com/how-to-develop-and-prototype-a-new-product/ https://predictabledesigns.com/how-to-develop-and-prototype-... Note however that the post-design prototyping stage is all done with off-the-shelf boards and similar components, there are no recommendations for developing surface mount soldering skills [1] or home semiconductor fabs[2], which are indeed cool but more in the hobby/art space. (look up 'surface mount assembly' on YT for why, e.g. Bittele) [1] https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/a-beginners-guide-to-soldering-surface-mount-components/ https://www.eevblog.com/forum/beginners/a-beginners-guide-to... [2] https://www.wired.com/story/22-year-old-builds-chips-parents-garage/ https://www.wired.com/story/22-year-old-builds-chips-parents...

GnarfGnarf 3y ago

It's the only place in the house where the wife can't harass her husband to tidy up.

tfandango 3y ago
In fact that's where the wife puts the stuff she doesn't know what to do with.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Like the husband.
- GianFabien 3y ago
  In our household it is where I put stuff that the wife doesn't want in the house and I'm loathe to throw away.

graycat 3y ago

For the original post (OP): Didn't see any mention of market. Hard work, youth, talent, dreams, obsession, dedication, novelty, risk taking, and an available empty garage -- these don't mean that there is or will be a market. No market, no successful company. As I read the OP, all or nearly all the successes had two things in common but not mentioned: (1) There was a market or nearly so; i.e., there was a nascent market. Plenty of people wanted the product or soon would after seeing it. (2) Not only was there at least a nascent market, due to various external circumstances, that market was growing quickly. Exercise: Ford cars? NYC had lots of horses and, thus, some very dirty streets. Cars didn't poop. Out in the country, a Model T was a better way to get to the retail stores in the nearest town than horse power. "External circumstances:" The oil industry was ready to supply gasoline and lubrication. The oil industry? The steamship Titanic was powered by oil. Wars, which wanted motor powered vehicles. Google? The Internet was exploding in bytes per second, users, uses, revenue, .... For many parts, especially social media, and as a whole, the Internet had a gravitational effect, i.e., the bigger it became, the faster it grew in, e.g., number of new users, revenue, ..., per month. So, quickly there became a need for Internet (Web) search, and Google grew. Facebook? As in the movie The Social Network, the small start of Hot or Not at Harvard spread quickly among universities and then, as it became social with the gravitational effect, had explosively rapid growth and, thus, both contributed to and benefited from the gravitational effect in general of the Web, Internet, microprocessor based computing, etc. Boeing? From cars, gasoline engine technology to power the airplanes. Wars for a market. Planes that could take off and land on water -- the planes didn't need airports and provided a faster way to cross oceans. So, in general: The economy moves along and creates a new need, i.e., a nascent market. Some likely new circumstances make it possible to meet this need, make the nascent market real. Then more circumstances make the market grow quickly. Timed just right, not too early, not too late, sometimes even a garage sized startup can meet the need and grow quickly.

karmakaze 3y ago

Woz debunks the started in a garage story[0] > Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak says that the notion the great company started in a garage is "a bit of a myth." [0] https://www.cnet.com/culture/woz-no-apple-was-not-started-in-a-garage/ https://www.cnet.com/culture/woz-no-apple-was-not-started-in...

eternityforest 3y ago

I think it's a lot harder to find projects worth doing. You're (probably?) not gonna make the next ASML in a garage. Everything is networked together, a lot of tech is very important to people's lives, and there are fewer repair people. There's a strong incentive to use stuff that's made by the billions and can be replaced tomorrow with Amazon Prime if needed, especially if it comes with lots of cloud value adds. It's hard to find a project that isn't done by 40 people on AliExpress. There's still highly specialized stuff, and things that require breakthroughs in basic science or cost engineering (Someone please make mass spectrometry and XRF a consumer grade thing so we can see what has lead in it!), but for the most part... people who can afford startup products pretty much have everything they need.

bluGill 3y ago
Everything builds on everything else. If you want to make a new GPU - you cannot be competitive without a large team and large backing. However there is an ecosystem of GPUs to choose from so if you want to make something that uses a GPU you can just buy one and build it in your garage. 30 years ago you could not have made something that needed a GPU - they didn't exist yet (the forerunners existed at SGI and the like - but they were not affordable) No amount of passion would have got the right brothers of 1850 flying - there was too much about making an airplane that wasn't invented (the ICE engine needed to be developed to enough efficiency, and metals light enough to work needed to exist) However when the metal industry developed eventually metals that can work were available to anyone. Better metals are available to me today, all I'm lacking is an idea/passion for something that is not possible. (though metals of today are not that much better)
fragmede 3y ago
It's not ASML, but Sam Zeloof's built ICs in his parents garage. http://sam.zeloof.xyz/ http://sam.zeloof.xyz/
tim333 3y ago
There's probably a lot of opportunity at the moment hooking AI stuff together some of which can be done on a small scale. The opportunities are always going to be in new areas where the low hanging fruit hasn't all been picked yet.

tejohnso 3y ago

What stands out to me among the examples is that amazing things can be achieved when a small number of highly motivated (obsessed) people get together in a space with few distractions and plenty of freedom to experiment.

koliber 3y ago

The only obvious conclusion is that to start the next unicorn company you must get access to the best garage possible.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

cobertos 3y ago

If only city ordinances weren't getting more restrictive with time. Would be hard to do some of this stuff today when some cities ban working on your car in your garage.

hasbot 3y ago
What are some example cities?
- Schnitz 3y ago
  And even then, where is it actually being enforced outside an HOA?
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Except, with 80% of new homes having an HOA, who doesn't have one?
  - cobertos 3y ago
    If it's an ordinance and someone complains (or it's one of those narc-y townships using satellite imagery and drone enforcement) then you get an inspection. If you're found in violation you'll get an enforcement notice. It's the one reason I am so nervous about who my neighbors are when doing anything "weird" on a property. The township, city, county, state, whatever jurisdiction it falls under _will_ handle it.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  I don't know cities, but I have seen plenty of HOAs ban it. Usually because there will be one bad apple that makes their home garage into a makeshift auto shop (and it will effect neighbors).
  - mmcgaha 3y ago
    It is explicit in my deed that I cannot run an auto shop on my property. When people make rules and say it is to stop X, I always ask why don't they just make a rule to stop X. I walked away from a rental once because they refused so I lost trust in them.

kloch 3y ago

You don't need a garage. You just need the ability to make things that work. And by "work" I mean actually work, and in a way that others want to use it (an intuitive interface that needs almost no training/explanation helps a lot here). It doesn't have to be polished, pretty, or anywhere near feature complete (see: Apple 1). It just has to pass the "will people actually use this beyond the novelty phase" test. I can't stress enough how important intuitive function is above form at this stage. That's step 1. Step 2 is to have a management team that can effectively monetize that thing and manage the risks (financial/legal/market) that all businesses have to deal with. Engineers are usually not good at these things. I've succeeded at step 1 many times but I'm personally not good at Step 2.

unstatusthequo 3y ago
Oh? Where do I put my car so the nightly thugs who see any car on the street tests to see if they’re locked? And if locked but salacious enough, they break the glass. So far for when not garaged, three break ins. $50k equipment lost, plus costs to repair. Garaged? Zero break ins .
- Turing_Machine 3y ago
  > Oh? Where do I put my car so the nightly thugs Somewhere not in that city, because (despite whatever amenities it might have) your city has been taken over by barbarians. Added bonus: the rent for the garage will be way cheaper.

PaulDavisThe1st 3y ago

The Amazon "garage" in Bellevue WA was not a garage. It had been converted by the owner of the house (Bezos was renting) or the previous owner. It was a normal livable space with windows, wall treatment etc. Yes, once upon a time it had been a garage, but the only thing "special" about the space that has any relationship to its original purpose is that it formed the only space in a typical US residence large enough for 3 people to work in without totally disrupting normal domestic life. If there's mystery or magic to a "garage", that's it. I know this because I worked in that garage until we moved to the so-called Color Tile Building in Seattle.

bombcar 3y ago
In certain neighborhoods these are very common, and you can usually start to recognize them - a window a bit closer to the ground, a door at ground level instead of at the top of a short stairs, etc.

Borrible 3y ago

Successful Garage People https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11496136/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11496136/