4 ms·

At least some years ago, browsing HN's comment section felt like it was a different world, separated from reality. I think some people need this kind of groundi

At least some years ago, browsing HN's comment section felt like it was a different world, separated from reality. I think some people need this kind of grounding reminders every once in a while.

esafak 2y ago
Russ (VC): Why would you go after revenue? Richard (CEO): Because... to make money? Russ: No. If you show revenue, people will ask how much, and it will never be enough. The company that was the hundred x-er, the thousand x-er, becomes the two x dog. But if you have no revenue, you can say you're pre-revenue... you're a potential pure play. It's not about how much you earn, it's about what you're worth, and who's worth the most? Companies that lose money. Pinterest, SnapChat, no revenue. Amazon has lost money every fucking quarter for the last twenty fucking years and that Bezos motherfucker is the king. There's no revenue. No one wants to see revenue. Go! Richard: Oh, um, I just thought that mainly the goal of companies is to make money. Russ: Yeah, no no no, that's not how it works. I don't want to make a little bit of money every day, I want to make a fuckton of money all at once. ROI. ROI! — Silicon Valley, "Bad Money" (2015). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAdXyPYKQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAdXyPYKQo
- rmnclmnt 2y ago
  One of the best shows of all time, both extremely sarcastic but so on-point at the same time. We laugh because we know it's true
  - dehrmann 2y ago
    Part of it was Mike Judge (Office Space, among others). Part was that they did really good research. They nailed lots of little details about VC, technology, tech businesses, the locale, and industry.
- louthy 2y ago
  > ROI Radio on Internet
65 2y ago
If you read enough comments about AI or LLMs on here you will realize the people of Hacker News do live in a different world from reality.
- conductr 2y ago
  I've been on here long enough to see it with every tech hype cycle in the past ~20 years. Self driving cars, VR, bitcoin, then generically 'crypto', web3, now AI/LLMs, probably a lot I'm missing right now... It's funny how the optimist control the narrative in the beginning then the pessimist start chiming in around the time the hype starts to vaporize. The AI/LLM cynicism is rising right now it seems.
  - nottorp 2y ago
    > It's funny how the optimist s/optimist/gullible
  - sanderjd 2y ago
    I guess I have a different view on this... I feel like you left out that the past 20 years has also seen enormous success in this industry, even to a historically unprecedented degree. You listed a number of things that have been super hyped flashes in the pan that never really panned out (or in the case of self driving cars, have taken way longer to pan out than people expected), but you didn't list the things that were super hyped and then became big successful sectors. I remember when I thought "web 2.0" was overhyped, but now it's just the water we all swim in. I remember when that went from blogs to being social media, and I thought that was way overhyped too, but it turns out it was a big deal. The cloud was overhyped, "big data" was overhyped, SaaS was overhyped. And it's true that all of these were overhyped! But they also turned into real business sectors. It's certainly difficult to predict which hype-y things are going to mature into sustainably large markets, and which are going to fade into obscurity, but a model of "things that are hyped are doomed" is not predictive. My own prediction is that AI tools are both overhyped and also very promising. I have no illusions that this prediction could be totally wrong. And even if it's right, I'm even more uncertain what the successful business models are going to be after the dust settles. We'll see!
jurgenaut23 2y ago
Actually, the rest of the comment section shows that this is still the case, at least to some extent.
phendrenad2 2y ago
Well, this is YCombinator, after all. VC-funded startups do still need to be ~unicorns.

At least some years ago, browsing HN's comment section felt like it was a different world, separated from reality. I think some people need this kind of grounding reminders every once in a while.

esafak 2y ago

Russ (VC): Why would you go after revenue? Richard (CEO): Because... to make money? Russ: No. If you show revenue, people will ask how much, and it will never be enough. The company that was the hundred x-er, the thousand x-er, becomes the two x dog. But if you have no revenue, you can say you're pre-revenue... you're a potential pure play. It's not about how much you earn, it's about what you're worth, and who's worth the most? Companies that lose money. Pinterest, SnapChat, no revenue. Amazon has lost money every fucking quarter for the last twenty fucking years and that Bezos motherfucker is the king. There's no revenue. No one wants to see revenue. Go! Richard: Oh, um, I just thought that mainly the goal of companies is to make money. Russ: Yeah, no no no, that's not how it works. I don't want to make a little bit of money every day, I want to make a fuckton of money all at once. ROI. ROI! — Silicon Valley, "Bad Money" (2015). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAdXyPYKQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzAdXyPYKQo

rmnclmnt 2y ago
One of the best shows of all time, both extremely sarcastic but so on-point at the same time. We laugh because we know it's true
- dehrmann 2y ago
  Part of it was Mike Judge (Office Space, among others). Part was that they did really good research. They nailed lots of little details about VC, technology, tech businesses, the locale, and industry.
louthy 2y ago
> ROI Radio on Internet

65 2y ago

If you read enough comments about AI or LLMs on here you will realize the people of Hacker News do live in a different world from reality.

conductr 2y ago
I've been on here long enough to see it with every tech hype cycle in the past ~20 years. Self driving cars, VR, bitcoin, then generically 'crypto', web3, now AI/LLMs, probably a lot I'm missing right now... It's funny how the optimist control the narrative in the beginning then the pessimist start chiming in around the time the hype starts to vaporize. The AI/LLM cynicism is rising right now it seems.
- nottorp 2y ago
  > It's funny how the optimist s/optimist/gullible
- sanderjd 2y ago
  I guess I have a different view on this... I feel like you left out that the past 20 years has also seen enormous success in this industry, even to a historically unprecedented degree. You listed a number of things that have been super hyped flashes in the pan that never really panned out (or in the case of self driving cars, have taken way longer to pan out than people expected), but you didn't list the things that were super hyped and then became big successful sectors. I remember when I thought "web 2.0" was overhyped, but now it's just the water we all swim in. I remember when that went from blogs to being social media, and I thought that was way overhyped too, but it turns out it was a big deal. The cloud was overhyped, "big data" was overhyped, SaaS was overhyped. And it's true that all of these were overhyped! But they also turned into real business sectors. It's certainly difficult to predict which hype-y things are going to mature into sustainably large markets, and which are going to fade into obscurity, but a model of "things that are hyped are doomed" is not predictive. My own prediction is that AI tools are both overhyped and also very promising. I have no illusions that this prediction could be totally wrong. And even if it's right, I'm even more uncertain what the successful business models are going to be after the dust settles. We'll see!

jurgenaut23 2y ago

Actually, the rest of the comment section shows that this is still the case, at least to some extent.

phendrenad2 2y ago

Well, this is YCombinator, after all. VC-funded startups do still need to be ~unicorns.