6 ms·

This is like when VCs were funding all kinds of ride share, bike share, food delivery, cannabis delivery, and burning money so everyone gets subsidized stuff wh

This is like when VCs were funding all kinds of ride share, bike share, food delivery, cannabis delivery, and burning money so everyone gets subsidized stuff while the market figures out wtf is going on. I love it. More goodies for us

gimmefreestuff 2y ago
Agree completely. Monetizing all of this is frankly...not my problem.
leeter 2y ago
I'm already keeping an eye on what NVidia gets into next... because that will inevitably be the "Next big thing". This is the third(ish) round of this pattern that I can recall, I'm probably wrong about the exact count, but NVidia is really good at figuring out how to be powering the "Next big thing". So alternatively... I should probably invest in the utilities powering whatever Datacenters are using the powerhungry monsters at the center of it all.
- malfist 2y ago
  There's a saying in the stock market that probably applies here: past performance does not indicate future performance. Getting lucky twice is a row is really really lucky. Getting lucky three times in a row is not more likely because they were lucky two times in a row
  - dartos 2y ago
    It may be getting lucky, or it may be that they have really great leadership. Very few other large tech companies have deep technical competence at CEO level leadership
    - furyofantares 2y ago
      It's definitely both at the same time.
- Yizahi 2y ago
  Hear me out, I know it is controversial idea, but anyway - gaming. :)
- mandevil 2y ago
  One thing I'm not clear on is how much of this is cause and how much effect: that is, does NVidia cheerleading for something make it more popular with the tech press and then everyone else too? There are definitely large parts of the tech press that serve more as stenographers than as skeptical reporters, and so I'm not sure how much is NVidia picking the right next big thing and how much is NVidia announcing the next big thing to the rest of us?
candiddevmike 2y ago
No, it means creating a bunch of unprofitable businesses that make it really hard for folks trying to build a sustainable business without VC money.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > that make it really hard for folks trying to build a sustainable business without VC money LLMs are capital intensive. They’re a natural fit for financing.
- jfengel 2y ago
  Yep, you will probably lose. The VCs aren't out there to advance the technology. They are there to lay down bets on who's going to be the winner. "Winner" has little to do with quality, and rides much more on being the one that just happens to resonate with people. The ones without money will usually lose because they get less opportunity to get in front of eyeballs. Occasionally they manage it anyway, because despite the myth that the VCs love to tell, they aren't really great at finding and promulgating the best tech.
denkmoon 2y ago
What goodies can I get from AI companies though?
- candiddevmike 2y ago
  Your own GPL unencumbered regurgitations of popular GPL libraries and applications.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    Except that copyright law doesn’t work that way.
    - mrbungie 2y ago
      At least OAI and MSFT offer "copyright shields" for enterprise customers. Say what you want about the morals associated to said offerings, but it sounds very interesting for companies that may want to use a plagiarizing machine for copying GPL code while covering their asses in some way (at least in terms of cost).
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> when VCs were funding all kinds of ride share, bike share, food delivery, cannabis delivery, and burning money so everyone gets subsidized stuff while the market figures out wtf is going on I’m reminded of slime molds solving mazes [1]. In essence, VC allows entrepreneurs to explore the solution space aggressively. Once solutions are found, resources are trimmed. [1] https://www.mbl.edu/news/how-can-slime-mold-solve-maze-physiology-course-finding-out https://www.mbl.edu/news/how-can-slime-mold-solve-maze-physi...
- gimmefreestuff 2y ago
  VC is the worst possible way to fund entrepeneurs. Except for all the others.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    VC is good for high-risk, capital-intensive, scalable bets. The high risk and scalability cancel out, thereby leaving the core of finance: lending to enable economics of scale. Plenty of entrepreneurship is low to moderate risk, bootstrappable and/or unscalable. That describes where VC is a raw deal. It also does not describe AI.
add-sub-mul-div 2y ago
That's exactly the short term thinking they're hoping they can use to distract. Tech companies purchased television away from legacy media companies and added (1) unskippable ads, (2) surveillance, (3) censorship and revocation of media you don't physically own, and now they're testing (4) ads while shows are paused. There's no excuse for getting fooled again.
chillfox 2y ago
Where I live the ridesharing/delivering startups didn't bring goodies, they just made everything worse. They destroyed the Taxi industry, I used to be able to just walk out to the taxi rank and get in the first taxi, but not anymore. Now I have to organize it on an app or with a phone call to a robot, then wait for the car to arrive, and finally I have to find the car among all the others that other people called. Food delivery used to be done by the restaurants own delivery staff, it was fast, reliable and often free if ordering for 2+ people. Now it always costs extra, and there are even more fees if I want the food while it's still hot. Zero care is taken with the delivery, food/drinks are not kept upright and can be a total mess on arrival. Sometimes it's escaped the container and is just in the plastic bag. I have ended up preferring to go pickup food myself over getting it delivered, even when I have a migraine, it's just gone to shit.
- sqeaky 2y ago
  Add the abuse of gig workers, expansion of the toxic tipping culture, increase in job count but reduction in pay, concentration of wealth in fewer hands. These rideshare and delivery companies are disgusting and terrible.
- CaptainFever 2y ago
  For where I live (Asia), I disagree with both of these examples. Getting a taxi was awful before ride-sharing apps. You'd have to walk to a taxi stop, or wait on the side of the road and hope you could hail one. Once the ride-sharing apps came in, suddenly getting a ride became a lot simpler. Our taxi companies are still alive, though they have their own apps now -- something that wouldn't have happened without competition -- and they also work together with the ride-hailing companies as a provider. You could still hail taxis or get them from stops too, though that isn't recommended given that they might try to run the meter by taking a longer route. For food delivery, before the apps, most places didn't deliver food. Nowadays, more places deliver. Even if a place already had their own delivery drivers, they didn't get rid of them. We get a choice, to use the app or to use the restaurant's own delivery. Usually the app is better for smaller meals since it has a lower minimum order amount, but the restaurant provides faster delivery for bigger orders.
- 2y ago
baq 2y ago
First VC to exit a nuclear reactor profitably is going to be something.
xenospn 2y ago
Unless we’re trying to get an actual company funded without giving away our worthless product for free.
Havoc 2y ago
It invariably end in enshitifcation of the startups product AND the destruction of the original option. Leaves you in a worse position than you started with.

gimmefreestuff 2y ago

Agree completely. Monetizing all of this is frankly...not my problem.

leeter 2y ago

I'm already keeping an eye on what NVidia gets into next... because that will inevitably be the "Next big thing". This is the third(ish) round of this pattern that I can recall, I'm probably wrong about the exact count, but NVidia is really good at figuring out how to be powering the "Next big thing". So alternatively... I should probably invest in the utilities powering whatever Datacenters are using the powerhungry monsters at the center of it all.

malfist 2y ago
There's a saying in the stock market that probably applies here: past performance does not indicate future performance. Getting lucky twice is a row is really really lucky. Getting lucky three times in a row is not more likely because they were lucky two times in a row
- dartos 2y ago
  It may be getting lucky, or it may be that they have really great leadership. Very few other large tech companies have deep technical competence at CEO level leadership
  - furyofantares 2y ago
    It's definitely both at the same time.
Yizahi 2y ago
Hear me out, I know it is controversial idea, but anyway - gaming. :)
mandevil 2y ago
One thing I'm not clear on is how much of this is cause and how much effect: that is, does NVidia cheerleading for something make it more popular with the tech press and then everyone else too? There are definitely large parts of the tech press that serve more as stenographers than as skeptical reporters, and so I'm not sure how much is NVidia picking the right next big thing and how much is NVidia announcing the next big thing to the rest of us?

candiddevmike 2y ago

No, it means creating a bunch of unprofitable businesses that make it really hard for folks trying to build a sustainable business without VC money.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> that make it really hard for folks trying to build a sustainable business without VC money LLMs are capital intensive. They’re a natural fit for financing.
jfengel 2y ago
Yep, you will probably lose. The VCs aren't out there to advance the technology. They are there to lay down bets on who's going to be the winner. "Winner" has little to do with quality, and rides much more on being the one that just happens to resonate with people. The ones without money will usually lose because they get less opportunity to get in front of eyeballs. Occasionally they manage it anyway, because despite the myth that the VCs love to tell, they aren't really great at finding and promulgating the best tech.

denkmoon 2y ago

What goodies can I get from AI companies though?

candiddevmike 2y ago
Your own GPL unencumbered regurgitations of popular GPL libraries and applications.
- lxgr 2y ago
  Except that copyright law doesn’t work that way.
  - mrbungie 2y ago
    At least OAI and MSFT offer "copyright shields" for enterprise customers. Say what you want about the morals associated to said offerings, but it sounds very interesting for companies that may want to use a plagiarizing machine for copying GPL code while covering their asses in some way (at least in terms of cost).

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> when VCs were funding all kinds of ride share, bike share, food delivery, cannabis delivery, and burning money so everyone gets subsidized stuff while the market figures out wtf is going on I’m reminded of slime molds solving mazes [1]. In essence, VC allows entrepreneurs to explore the solution space aggressively. Once solutions are found, resources are trimmed. [1] https://www.mbl.edu/news/how-can-slime-mold-solve-maze-physiology-course-finding-out https://www.mbl.edu/news/how-can-slime-mold-solve-maze-physi...

gimmefreestuff 2y ago
VC is the worst possible way to fund entrepeneurs. Except for all the others.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  VC is good for high-risk, capital-intensive, scalable bets. The high risk and scalability cancel out, thereby leaving the core of finance: lending to enable economics of scale. Plenty of entrepreneurship is low to moderate risk, bootstrappable and/or unscalable. That describes where VC is a raw deal. It also does not describe AI.

add-sub-mul-div 2y ago

That's exactly the short term thinking they're hoping they can use to distract. Tech companies purchased television away from legacy media companies and added (1) unskippable ads, (2) surveillance, (3) censorship and revocation of media you don't physically own, and now they're testing (4) ads while shows are paused. There's no excuse for getting fooled again.

chillfox 2y ago

Where I live the ridesharing/delivering startups didn't bring goodies, they just made everything worse. They destroyed the Taxi industry, I used to be able to just walk out to the taxi rank and get in the first taxi, but not anymore. Now I have to organize it on an app or with a phone call to a robot, then wait for the car to arrive, and finally I have to find the car among all the others that other people called. Food delivery used to be done by the restaurants own delivery staff, it was fast, reliable and often free if ordering for 2+ people. Now it always costs extra, and there are even more fees if I want the food while it's still hot. Zero care is taken with the delivery, food/drinks are not kept upright and can be a total mess on arrival. Sometimes it's escaped the container and is just in the plastic bag. I have ended up preferring to go pickup food myself over getting it delivered, even when I have a migraine, it's just gone to shit.

sqeaky 2y ago
Add the abuse of gig workers, expansion of the toxic tipping culture, increase in job count but reduction in pay, concentration of wealth in fewer hands. These rideshare and delivery companies are disgusting and terrible.
CaptainFever 2y ago
For where I live (Asia), I disagree with both of these examples. Getting a taxi was awful before ride-sharing apps. You'd have to walk to a taxi stop, or wait on the side of the road and hope you could hail one. Once the ride-sharing apps came in, suddenly getting a ride became a lot simpler. Our taxi companies are still alive, though they have their own apps now -- something that wouldn't have happened without competition -- and they also work together with the ride-hailing companies as a provider. You could still hail taxis or get them from stops too, though that isn't recommended given that they might try to run the meter by taking a longer route. For food delivery, before the apps, most places didn't deliver food. Nowadays, more places deliver. Even if a place already had their own delivery drivers, they didn't get rid of them. We get a choice, to use the app or to use the restaurant's own delivery. Usually the app is better for smaller meals since it has a lower minimum order amount, but the restaurant provides faster delivery for bigger orders.
2y ago

baq 2y ago

First VC to exit a nuclear reactor profitably is going to be something.

xenospn 2y ago

Unless we’re trying to get an actual company funded without giving away our worthless product for free.

Havoc 2y ago

It invariably end in enshitifcation of the startups product AND the destruction of the original option. Leaves you in a worse position than you started with.