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Redefine "innovation" as "generate money for VCs". Then anything which lets you sell eyeballs to advertisers (or metadata about eyeballs to advertisers) becomes

Redefine "innovation" as "generate money for VCs". Then anything which lets you sell eyeballs to advertisers (or metadata about eyeballs to advertisers) becomes innovative, if you do it at the right scale.

ekianjo 13y ago
That's not really the meaning of innovation, though.
- freshhawk 13y ago
  The second highest comment here (when I'm writing this anyway) contains this sentence: "Innovation is a vehicle for the creation of wealth." So it's not an uncommon meaning. Delusional, but not uncommon.
  - frostmatthew 13y ago
    > So it's not an uncommon meaning. Delusional, but not uncommon. "Innovation is a vehicle for the creation of wealth" isn't defining innovation as creation of wealth, it's saying [innovation as defined] is a vehicle...
    - freshhawk 13y ago
      The full quote: "Innovation is a vehicle for the creation of wealth. Innovation is in and of itself fairly worthless. The only reason the concept of innovation is so popular is because of the value (and the valuations) we put on companies who are seen to be innovating" I don't see how that can be interpreted that way in context.
      - frostmatthew 13y ago
        > I don't see how that can be interpreted that way in context. It's not an interpretation...chromatic suggested Redefine "innovation" as "generate money for VCs" and you apparently agree with that as a possible (though delusional) definition by the user you quoted - I disagree with that quote as attempting to define innovation. Let's replace the word innovation with chromatic's definition in what you quoted: "[generating money for VCs] is a vehicle for the creation of wealth. [generating money for VCs] is in and of itself fairly worthless. The only reason the concept of [generating money for VCs] is so popular is because of the value (and the valuations) we put on companies who are seen to be [generating money for VCs]" I do agree with you defining innovation as generating money for VCs is delusional, I just disagree with what you quoted as an attempt to define innovation.
        freshhawk 13y ago
        Ah, I see. I wasn't arguing that the person I quoted was using the word innovation in that way but that they were explaining the same worldview: That the benefit of innovation is the generation of profit.
- morganherlocker 13y ago
  Some amount of innovation seems inevitable for any successful startup. Most of us could build a site in a weekend that does image sharing, but it would take some serious innovation to scale the site up to a billion users without blowing the bank on infrastructure. Doing the same thing people have been doing, but at 1/10 the cost is clearly innovative. Whether its scale, raw idea, business model, speed, quality, or whatever; there has to be something new to get any significant traction. Are all types of innovation equal? Of course not, but all types provide some sort of value. Throw open source into the mix and you start to see the network effect in play where even "useless idea" startups provide value (although the creators may not get much return on it) in the form of assisting more useful ideas come to fruition.
  - wbl 13y ago
    That innovation is now commoditized: AWS will let you buy it. The first few times it was a big benefit to society to get invented, but the next social app won't advance what society can do the same way the first one did.
- chromatic 13y ago
  You're absolutely right, but in the same way that the financial industry spends its resources coming up with ever more exotic financial derivatives from which it can skim rent, the VC industry spends its resources comes up with ever more exotic ways to scale free userbases to extract money from IAP, ads, or data mining. That only gets called "innovation" in press releases because the word doesn't sound completely cynical yet.

ekianjo 13y ago

That's not really the meaning of innovation, though.

freshhawk 13y ago
The second highest comment here (when I'm writing this anyway) contains this sentence: "Innovation is a vehicle for the creation of wealth." So it's not an uncommon meaning. Delusional, but not uncommon.
- frostmatthew 13y ago
  > So it's not an uncommon meaning. Delusional, but not uncommon. "Innovation is a vehicle for the creation of wealth" isn't defining innovation as creation of wealth, it's saying [innovation as defined] is a vehicle...
  - freshhawk 13y ago
    The full quote: "Innovation is a vehicle for the creation of wealth. Innovation is in and of itself fairly worthless. The only reason the concept of innovation is so popular is because of the value (and the valuations) we put on companies who are seen to be innovating" I don't see how that can be interpreted that way in context.
    - frostmatthew 13y ago
      > I don't see how that can be interpreted that way in context. It's not an interpretation...chromatic suggested Redefine "innovation" as "generate money for VCs" and you apparently agree with that as a possible (though delusional) definition by the user you quoted - I disagree with that quote as attempting to define innovation. Let's replace the word innovation with chromatic's definition in what you quoted: "[generating money for VCs] is a vehicle for the creation of wealth. [generating money for VCs] is in and of itself fairly worthless. The only reason the concept of [generating money for VCs] is so popular is because of the value (and the valuations) we put on companies who are seen to be [generating money for VCs]" I do agree with you defining innovation as generating money for VCs is delusional, I just disagree with what you quoted as an attempt to define innovation.
      - freshhawk 13y ago
        Ah, I see. I wasn't arguing that the person I quoted was using the word innovation in that way but that they were explaining the same worldview: That the benefit of innovation is the generation of profit.
morganherlocker 13y ago
Some amount of innovation seems inevitable for any successful startup. Most of us could build a site in a weekend that does image sharing, but it would take some serious innovation to scale the site up to a billion users without blowing the bank on infrastructure. Doing the same thing people have been doing, but at 1/10 the cost is clearly innovative. Whether its scale, raw idea, business model, speed, quality, or whatever; there has to be something new to get any significant traction. Are all types of innovation equal? Of course not, but all types provide some sort of value. Throw open source into the mix and you start to see the network effect in play where even "useless idea" startups provide value (although the creators may not get much return on it) in the form of assisting more useful ideas come to fruition.
- wbl 13y ago
  That innovation is now commoditized: AWS will let you buy it. The first few times it was a big benefit to society to get invented, but the next social app won't advance what society can do the same way the first one did.
chromatic 13y ago
You're absolutely right, but in the same way that the financial industry spends its resources coming up with ever more exotic financial derivatives from which it can skim rent, the VC industry spends its resources comes up with ever more exotic ways to scale free userbases to extract money from IAP, ads, or data mining. That only gets called "innovation" in press releases because the word doesn't sound completely cynical yet.