4 ms·

This is defeatist. What do I know, I don't run a billion dollar startup. But there's a valuable "necessary but not sufficient" insight to all good advice. The

by apsurd 7mo ago

This is defeatist. What do I know, I don't run a billion dollar startup. But there's a valuable "necessary but not sufficient" insight to all good advice. The lean startup IS good advice. The best I can do with your argument is "getting out of the building is no longer sufficient". Sure. But it doesn't make the entire arch of how we got here "wrong". And yes, all companies were started with a few people, a few customers. So that's why there's nothing much here to see for me, other than defeatist sentiment.

throwaway27448 7mo ago
Hey there's always communism to aim for when y'all fail to improve society
- apsurd 7mo ago
  It makes sense to me to try to be good at Capitalism. You're right, it may be a fool's errand, but what's the alternative? FWIW, can't believe I'm replying to literally "throwaway random number" but Capitalism isn't my cup of tea. I rode around on a bicycle for the last decade. But it's what we've got.
  - throwaway27448 7mo ago
    It's not like the past generations didn't try to make it work, too, and for-profit development has failed to deliver the promise of technology that uplifts rather than oppresses by any metric i can think of. If capitalism doesn't work, and there are no alternatives, then perhaps we shouldn't be using chips at all and we should be focusing on other means to solve problems in our society. Edit: wikipedia is nice. So are cheap universal personal cameras. Point to point communication is nice. None of these require capitalism at all; indeed, capital will want to rent out these as well (if you aren't already renting through a cell plan). why must our needs always be subservient to those of the market?
dminik 7mo ago
It may be defeatist, but it is correct. Seriously, how do you even realistically approach taking on ASML. They spent decades and billions of (investment) dollars to do insane moonshot research and it paid off. But it also closed off the door behind them. Entire countries (Russia, China, ...) have been trying to reproduce it. They have not succeeded yet.
- apsurd 7mo ago
  why does one need to take on ASML? I had to look it up, semiconductors. ASML market cap is ~500B. Meta market cap is ~1.5T. i'm no facebook fan but it was started by a dude in a dorm room. So I think saying "well those times are gone now" is defeatist. (fwiw i personally have no interest in building a trillion dollar company from my basement, just talking philosophy here)
  - dminik 7mo ago
    If we're going to be like that, we should go for Nvidia. Their market cap is currently ~4T. I can see that going very well.
    - apsurd 7mo ago
      I'm genuinely asking why are we goaling on overtaking the most valuable companies in human history? Startup advice, as i understand it, is about innovation: expanding the pie. I sound like a VC shill. Don't mean to be, i know it's riddled with rich people passing money around pretending like value is being created. It's just I don't get what's so wrong with the HN crowd here trying to be better at building a successful company?
      - aboardRat4 7mo ago
        >I'm genuinely asking why are we goaling on overtaking the most valuable companies in human history? The most valuable companies are expected to be the largest, and, as a result, the most inefficient hence the easiest to overtake.
- 7mo ago

by apsurd 7mo ago

throwaway27448 7mo ago

Hey there's always communism to aim for when y'all fail to improve society

apsurd 7mo ago
It makes sense to me to try to be good at Capitalism. You're right, it may be a fool's errand, but what's the alternative? FWIW, can't believe I'm replying to literally "throwaway random number" but Capitalism isn't my cup of tea. I rode around on a bicycle for the last decade. But it's what we've got.
- throwaway27448 7mo ago
  It's not like the past generations didn't try to make it work, too, and for-profit development has failed to deliver the promise of technology that uplifts rather than oppresses by any metric i can think of. If capitalism doesn't work, and there are no alternatives, then perhaps we shouldn't be using chips at all and we should be focusing on other means to solve problems in our society. Edit: wikipedia is nice. So are cheap universal personal cameras. Point to point communication is nice. None of these require capitalism at all; indeed, capital will want to rent out these as well (if you aren't already renting through a cell plan). why must our needs always be subservient to those of the market?

dminik 7mo ago

It may be defeatist, but it is correct. Seriously, how do you even realistically approach taking on ASML. They spent decades and billions of (investment) dollars to do insane moonshot research and it paid off. But it also closed off the door behind them. Entire countries (Russia, China, ...) have been trying to reproduce it. They have not succeeded yet.

apsurd 7mo ago
why does one need to take on ASML? I had to look it up, semiconductors. ASML market cap is ~500B. Meta market cap is ~1.5T. i'm no facebook fan but it was started by a dude in a dorm room. So I think saying "well those times are gone now" is defeatist. (fwiw i personally have no interest in building a trillion dollar company from my basement, just talking philosophy here)
- dminik 7mo ago
  If we're going to be like that, we should go for Nvidia. Their market cap is currently ~4T. I can see that going very well.
  - apsurd 7mo ago
    I'm genuinely asking why are we goaling on overtaking the most valuable companies in human history? Startup advice, as i understand it, is about innovation: expanding the pie. I sound like a VC shill. Don't mean to be, i know it's riddled with rich people passing money around pretending like value is being created. It's just I don't get what's so wrong with the HN crowd here trying to be better at building a successful company?
    - aboardRat4 7mo ago
      >I'm genuinely asking why are we goaling on overtaking the most valuable companies in human history? The most valuable companies are expected to be the largest, and, as a result, the most inefficient hence the easiest to overtake.
7mo ago