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I'm nowhere near the 'bay area' or any US state, nor even in Europe. I'm British, but living abroad, have never known anyone else in the IT industry. HN is my o

I'm nowhere near the 'bay area' or any US state, nor even in Europe. I'm British, but living abroad, have never known anyone else in the IT industry. HN is my only contact :) When I hear and see the things people in SV say and do - I honestly wonder what the hell is going on out there. It seems people who can put a bit of html + css together are getting paid 10 million these days. -- good luck to them and everything - but it's a bit mental (imho).

pbreit 13y ago
That sentiment could not be further from the truth. You could prove it to yourself simply by doing what you describe and seeing how far you get. Breaking through the noise and building a large, attractive user base is incredibly difficult. Sure, just building the web site isn't that hard (actually it is).
- fidotron 13y ago
  I think you're right, but it's definitely the outside perception that something is odd about SV in this respect, and relatively trivial products can get blown out of all proportion there. For me it was Cover, that Android launcher, that caused the confusion. The value of that is not in being able to develop it, because that aspect of it was trivial, but having the idea to do it, the vision to see it's possible, and the connections to get PR to get visibility for that in SV seems much more valuable than "just" the ability to execute. I think the surprising factor is just how valuable those intangibles can be judged to be. (Not saying they're not valuable, as they clearly are, but it's interesting just how much the VC market thinks they're worth, amplified by the effect if you happen to be in SV).
hack_edu 13y ago
Software is made by teams, and teams that can ship quality products and code consistently are invaluable. Few companies actually know how to ship product or complete projects, let alone succeed. Early-stage companies are purchased/funded because their teams and not the checklist of experience on the team-members resumes. Successful, or even good products often take second-seat to this. Surprisingly enough, people pay boatloads for functional teams.

pbreit 13y ago

That sentiment could not be further from the truth. You could prove it to yourself simply by doing what you describe and seeing how far you get. Breaking through the noise and building a large, attractive user base is incredibly difficult. Sure, just building the web site isn't that hard (actually it is).

fidotron 13y ago
I think you're right, but it's definitely the outside perception that something is odd about SV in this respect, and relatively trivial products can get blown out of all proportion there. For me it was Cover, that Android launcher, that caused the confusion. The value of that is not in being able to develop it, because that aspect of it was trivial, but having the idea to do it, the vision to see it's possible, and the connections to get PR to get visibility for that in SV seems much more valuable than "just" the ability to execute. I think the surprising factor is just how valuable those intangibles can be judged to be. (Not saying they're not valuable, as they clearly are, but it's interesting just how much the VC market thinks they're worth, amplified by the effect if you happen to be in SV).

hack_edu 13y ago

Software is made by teams, and teams that can ship quality products and code consistently are invaluable. Few companies actually know how to ship product or complete projects, let alone succeed. Early-stage companies are purchased/funded because their teams and not the checklist of experience on the team-members resumes. Successful, or even good products often take second-seat to this. Surprisingly enough, people pay boatloads for functional teams.