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In transactional financial markets "friends" is not the right word, but there is something to be said about more or less effective alignment of interests and th

In transactional financial markets "friends" is not the right word, but there is something to be said about more or less effective alignment of interests and that is purely a matter of design. There is more than enough money sloshing around, it all boils down to designing contracts and suitable information exchanges between parties. So anybody thinking that the current system is sub-obtimal can try their hand at disrupting the VC system and making history :-) An arrangement that better utilizes the majority of the entrepreneurial crowd's energy and time is likely to at least carve a niche, if not dominate. It may not even be that hard. The chasing of planet-scale returns (with the corresponding discounting of the rest 99.99%) is a recent phenomenon and may be just an aberration.

benreesman 2y ago
Financial accountants have a line item for not being a dick. It’s called “goodwill”. No shit.
- bombcar 2y ago
  Goodwill is like dark matter; they have to account for value increases or decreases when doing double entry bookkeeping so they invented goodwill for that.
  - benreesman 2y ago
    The trivial necessity of valuing the intangible of being well-liked by one’s customers and partners has nothing to do with positing definitionally unobservable mass. The cost and effort and intellectual integrity burnt on linking that mass to bosonic super partners even after a six sigma result at CERN on scalar field excitation at 125 GeV was found exactly as everyone knew it would be without a squark in sight is very on brand for what passes as rigor around here these days.
- gumby 2y ago
  Ha ha, this is both hilarious and so true!
wcarss 2y ago
To carve any niche in a space like this, one needs extensive personal connections, money of their own to apply and put in the game, time to spend on it, and the belief that this is the best use of all of it. It may well be that far better arrangements exist, but how would a slumdog or a small time farmer or a stay at home parent ever get the ball rolling? Who would play ball with them? It would pretty much require that an existing VC or an empowered member of their ecosystem have the idea and see a path to it enriching themselves in order for them to spend time on it. This is a major issue with pure market maximalism like the above: not everyone has agency within and access to every market, and no agent within a market would just let it change unless they personally stand to gain. Many potential solutions pass through empowerment or enrichment of different groups than those currently holding the reins, and this may mean those solutions are impossible to explore.
PaulStatezny 2y ago
> money sloshing around Meta-comment: What a creative and effective word picture. In just 3 words there's so much information that instantly comes across.
ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago
I do not know who Jason lemkins is but he seems like a random small fry saying bullshit to gain some clout. I have worked with bigger vc firms such as matrix partners and they genuinely care about you and want your startup to succeed if they are interested. Trick is to make something which is genuinely cool and matches with the thesis and talk to vcs who are respectable. Yc is a great help in this regard. They help you understand which vcs are respectable and which vcs you should treat like mushrooms: feed them shit and keep them in the dark. Lemkins seems like a mushroom.

benreesman 2y ago

Financial accountants have a line item for not being a dick. It’s called “goodwill”. No shit.

bombcar 2y ago
Goodwill is like dark matter; they have to account for value increases or decreases when doing double entry bookkeeping so they invented goodwill for that.
- benreesman 2y ago
  The trivial necessity of valuing the intangible of being well-liked by one’s customers and partners has nothing to do with positing definitionally unobservable mass. The cost and effort and intellectual integrity burnt on linking that mass to bosonic super partners even after a six sigma result at CERN on scalar field excitation at 125 GeV was found exactly as everyone knew it would be without a squark in sight is very on brand for what passes as rigor around here these days.
gumby 2y ago
Ha ha, this is both hilarious and so true!

wcarss 2y ago

To carve any niche in a space like this, one needs extensive personal connections, money of their own to apply and put in the game, time to spend on it, and the belief that this is the best use of all of it. It may well be that far better arrangements exist, but how would a slumdog or a small time farmer or a stay at home parent ever get the ball rolling? Who would play ball with them? It would pretty much require that an existing VC or an empowered member of their ecosystem have the idea and see a path to it enriching themselves in order for them to spend time on it. This is a major issue with pure market maximalism like the above: not everyone has agency within and access to every market, and no agent within a market would just let it change unless they personally stand to gain. Many potential solutions pass through empowerment or enrichment of different groups than those currently holding the reins, and this may mean those solutions are impossible to explore.

PaulStatezny 2y ago

> money sloshing around Meta-comment: What a creative and effective word picture. In just 3 words there's so much information that instantly comes across.

ilrwbwrkhv 2y ago

I do not know who Jason lemkins is but he seems like a random small fry saying bullshit to gain some clout. I have worked with bigger vc firms such as matrix partners and they genuinely care about you and want your startup to succeed if they are interested. Trick is to make something which is genuinely cool and matches with the thesis and talk to vcs who are respectable. Yc is a great help in this regard. They help you understand which vcs are respectable and which vcs you should treat like mushrooms: feed them shit and keep them in the dark. Lemkins seems like a mushroom.