4 ms·

pretty crazy to think that Rhode Island could have financed over 3,000 YC seed investments with this one failure.

• Drbble 14y ago
  Seems more like intentional corruption than failure. Did Curtis have any bona tides or anything to offer besides photo ops with starstruck officials? The failure was in electing or appointing the bureaucrats who spent public funds for personal entertainment.
  • mkramlich 14y ago
    My bet is a mix of incompetence (on the part of 38 Studios leadership, and government side), plus maybe some under-the-table kickbacks. They could have just started the company the obvious and healthy way, by making a product then selling it, then iterating and scaling up using organic revenue that came from customers. When customers buy your shit, they're voting with your wallet to say, "I want your shit. Take my money", so it solves or derisks the whole "Is there a market for this? Will we burn through this investor cash and ever fail to make payroll?" problem rather neatly. But instead they tried to juice it with investor crash. Which at times is a bit like trying to finish your semester project early by snorting a lot of cocaine so can skip sleeping. It just might work out ok and come to a gentle landing. But all kinds of forces pushing against that happening, and far more risky.
• stephengillie 14y ago
  Why was Rhode Island trying "to jump start a video game industry in Rhode Island" by investing in only one company? Why not fund 3000 smaller videogame companies? They could have given $250,000 to 300 videogame companies, or $2.5 million each to 30 companies.
  • thedaveoflife 14y ago
    the sad answer is because 38 studios had a famous CEO