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What..in the world... People don't do startups to change society. They do it to get rich. Changing society may or may not result. People give away money eit

by palish 19y ago

What..in the world... People don't do startups to change society. They do it to get rich. Changing society may or may not result. People give away money either to feel good about themselves or to help accomplish a goal. If a rich person's goal is "to change society", and a startup's goal is "to get rich", then the rich person will only invest in startups that will change society in the ways the rich person wants it to change. Which is what happens already. But if a rich person's goal is "to get richer", then they'll invest in startups that they think have a decent chance in getting rich, regardless of whether or not they change society. Therefore, the current system actually invests in more startups than your system. So what are you proposing? I guess a more direct answer to your question is: Nobody.

comatose_kid 19y ago
Your view that startups are created only to make $$$ is kind of cynical. Money is important, but I'd think that the really cool startups are the ones that try to change society. They just happen to get rewarded by the market. Anyways, I agree that the original post is kind of random...
- yters 19y ago
  Well, it's one of those questions that get right to the heart of the issue, but people don't feel comfortable asking because their context is based on one specific answer. Many times, those are exactly the questions that should be asked. Sometimes they're just retarded. I decided to give it a shot.
yters 19y ago
The point is, why do you want to get rich? I thought most hackers here aren't in it for the money alone, but for the freedom it gives them. But if all you hackers really care about is moolah, then that's pretty boring. If you look at history, how many of the really fundamental, ground breaking ideas came from the people who mainly cared about getting rich? But, I'm not proposing a different system. I'm all for people sponsoring startups. Just if people are interested in sponsoring hacking that's primarily aimed at interesting ideas, I'm more for that. I suspect pg is headed in this direction once YC becomes lucrative enough. His philosophy posts obviously show he's interested in much loftier things, albeit with empirical feedback.

by palish 19y ago

comatose_kid 19y ago

Your view that startups are created only to make $$$ is kind of cynical. Money is important, but I'd think that the really cool startups are the ones that try to change society. They just happen to get rewarded by the market. Anyways, I agree that the original post is kind of random...

yters 19y ago
Well, it's one of those questions that get right to the heart of the issue, but people don't feel comfortable asking because their context is based on one specific answer. Many times, those are exactly the questions that should be asked. Sometimes they're just retarded. I decided to give it a shot.

yters 19y ago

The point is, why do you want to get rich? I thought most hackers here aren't in it for the money alone, but for the freedom it gives them. But if all you hackers really care about is moolah, then that's pretty boring. If you look at history, how many of the really fundamental, ground breaking ideas came from the people who mainly cared about getting rich? But, I'm not proposing a different system. I'm all for people sponsoring startups. Just if people are interested in sponsoring hacking that's primarily aimed at interesting ideas, I'm more for that. I suspect pg is headed in this direction once YC becomes lucrative enough. His philosophy posts obviously show he's interested in much loftier things, albeit with empirical feedback.