4 ms·

By not starting with spaceships, but instead with something that can evolve into spaceships. Here's the first product of Boeing, which built the bottom stage o

• carpdiem 13y ago
  I feel like this is not a good comparison. Boeing took fifty years to go from the company that built that plane, to the company that helped build the Saturn V. I'm all for long time horizons, but I don't think that most startup founders envision spending fifty years on a company in order to finally, at the end of that, get to do what they wanted to do in the first place.
  • pw 13y ago
    I don't know about most startup founders, but I think YC might be okay with a fifty-year time horizon given that Sam said that they invest with an "infinite time horizon" and that needing to raise a billion dollars over the course of a company's lifetime is a "plus".
  • netcan 13y ago
    Boeing didn't take a straight path from A to B so the timescale is not all that relevant. It's just an example of how things that seem impossible from a cold start seem more possible when you think in steps. It's not step 1 - raise $250m , step 2 - build spaceship. Elon Musk seems like the counterexample because he started with so much capital and credibility. But he was very obviously thinking steps from the start. Each one risky. Build engine. Build high end car. Buildlower end cars. Maybe then build parts for other manufacturers. Most big goals are reached in steps. The more difficult and risky the goal the more steps there are and the bigger and riskier they are likely to be but they are still steps. If your goal is building spaceships you could start by doing something useful with satellites as a step 1. This could be a kickstart-able sized undertaking. https://www.google.ie/search?q=site:https://www.kickstarter.com/+satellite https://www.google.ie/search?q=site:https://www.kickstarter.... Obviously if you are trying to push the boundaries of what a cold start startup can possibly achieve, you are going to find yourself on the difficult-impossible border region but that's the point, isn't it?
  • rguzman 13y ago
    for anyone who is both willing and able to do one of these 'breakout technology' companies, the company is what they want to do in the first place.
• danelectro 13y ago
  On these multi-decade projects, it always seemed to me like investors would be more interested if a few of the decades were accomplished in advance of trying to achieve funding. If your life's work was geared toward making money for investors someday in case you encounter capital, and you were not going to let a lack of capital keep you from starting your pressing research anyway, a number of decades would be expected to have elapsed before you had the most attractive technology you could offer up for investment into. For those things that truly require decades before maximum fruition, there is no substitute for decades, just do it. -Unfortunately, there seems to be far more opportunity out there than ability.... We should remember that good fortune often happens when opportunity meets with preparation. -Pretty much everything will come to him who hustles while he waits. --TAEdison
• deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]