753200+ entries in 0.589s
BingoBoingo: mircea_popescu:
That would be a
terrible shame
ninjashogun: I just wasn't sure if
the
tone is somewhat pseudo- or ironic, or it's meant
to be read "straight"
mircea_popescu: BingoBoingo i recall he was prepping for some surgery i hope
they didn't end up cutting
the wrong part.
ninjashogun: It's an intersting introduction. In
the end I like it :)
mircea_popescu: ninjashogun people who don't have
to supervise
their own humours
to please a
third party behave differently
than
the us norm.
BingoBoingo: mircea_popescu:
That's a very good question
ninjashogun: that first paragraph isa joke right? ("what's
the idea")? like it's pseudo-lofty, right?
ninjashogun: The ones I know
that made a killing did so by immigrating
to
the United States :)
mircea_popescu: but i know plenty of hungarian folk
that really killed it in
the 90s
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, well I could just ask you. Not really
that interested.
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, I don't mean
to pick on Romania. For many of my examples I'm really
thinking of Hungary, and using it as an analogy.
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, can you imagine doing due dilligence on a company
that isn't even registered?
That means only best friends can invest. Your pool of potential investors is literally limited
to 7-20 people, no matter who you are in Romania. (Because
that's how many people you
trust
through highschool.)
ninjashogun: asciilifeform,
that is part of what I mean
BingoBoingo: mircea_popescu: Maybe in limited cases, but
The US isn't quite Norway or Denmark
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, it's
the same reason (to be honest)
that very few Romanians found startups and
that you would have had far more
trouble finidng cofounders if you didnt' want
to do it alone,
than you would have in (for example), Berlin, Rome, Brussels, London, Paris,
Tokyo, etc.....
BingoBoingo: mircea_popescu: Net access not so much, but... mail and
telephones were good enough for IBM
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu,
the answer is
that
they do not have
the right socioeconomic perspective.
ninjashogun: You can convince yourself of
this fact by being nearly 100% sure
that more
than $190B in wealth would be created if 10,000 qualified engineering and bioscience etc grad student founders were funded at $200K each for 100 years. It's not a lottery - it's just some unusual percentages.
mircea_popescu: technically speaking
the cards in
the deck are a deterministic machine
BingoBoingo: ninjashogun:
That doesn't mean you can't grab a
tire iron and supply a pawn shop with
tvs until your enterprize is "funded"
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, I was actually responding
to
the earlier statement (day 1: ...lottery) with my statement about his model being wrong.
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, I don't know about
the criminals, generally
they're not very smart. But I do know about founders and creating something.
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, I
think your model is a very, very fair one under normal circumstances. (Such as
the Efficient Market Hypothesis.) However, I have very deep
theoretical proof
that your model is mistaken, and
that
these founders were in fact leveraging
the same opportunity inefficiency
that I am.
mircea_popescu: generally,
the prisons are full of people who perceived
they can't afford
to play
their chosen game and decided
to
try and play anyway.
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, also, if my investors don't know of
them, i can't leverage
their background
to get an investment, either.
mircea_popescu: well,
they'd be
the use
to you
that
they'd give you a useful picture of
the world.
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, so how would I learn from
them? What use are
they
to me?
mircea_popescu: you don't know
the names of all
the dudes
that you don't know
the names of.
mircea_popescu: you only know
the names of
these dudes because you know
the names of
these dudes.
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, fine. AirBNB had
to sell Cereal. Yes Cereal.
To fund
their idea of a C2C ebay of Rentals.
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, again,
this is why I mention
that Steve Jobs (a kid who stole $5000 from his best and only friend
to start Apple), Mark Zuckerberg (a guy who scammed a map website guy out of $2000
to start facebook), and Larry Page (a poor grad student who had
to give $50B away in equity
to get an immigrant
to code up his Larry Page Rank), also did not have
the means
to play.They couldn't play.
They did anyway.
ninjashogun: But you can't show an investor a mockup, and a bundle of wires, and say, imagine if
the latter looked like
the former!
ninjashogun: Note
that
the wireless portion doesn't exist at all. I don't even have a specan (spectrum analyzer).
The only eqiupment I developed is with large arduinos, as well as mockups of what it could look like.
ninjashogun: (this is certified 2.4 ghz wireless equipment,
this portion)
ninjashogun: I don't mean
to say anything about hte level of ambition you have in your hardware startup but usually a certified lab for developing ours costs $60K, which I am going
to do on about $8K in used eBay equipment.
ozbot: S.NSA pe
Trilema - Un blog de Mircea Popescu.
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, in startups, on
the other hand, it's usual
to build an MVP using processes
that don't scale, and without spending much money, until financing is secured.
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, at
this point I need
the loan in order
to get
to
the stage of prototype
that
the investors need
to
test (as part of
their due dilligence also) and see in close
to
the final form factor.
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, I had
to make an unbelievable amount of progress
to get offered a seed round on a hardware project
that has not yet been completed and has no
traction.
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, oh, you liken my arrangement here
to a mexican factory? Well
the problem with
that is
that
this is where
the development was being done, not production. We ahve a manufacturing partner lined up actually, production will be in China.
ninjashogun: I was extended
this loan (basically) we did up paperwork for it and
then I've been
trying
to collect it for over 5 weeks without luck. I can't get back in contact wiht
the person (after exchanging many forms of contact). so so much after how easy it is
to get a loan.
mircea_popescu: well once your hardwar estart-up succeeds
this will be pretty epic material.
ninjashogun: sorry, I meant
to write: without pay for my startup (and now startups) - as I started working on
the jobs site one after spending more
than a month
trying
to collect
the loan I closed
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, I have no proof of income due
to
the fact
that I have been working without pay for my startups (startup at
the moment)
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, yes, rent in a very small room in a very large shared apartment, is $111 (after some clever negotiation from me based on how infrequently
the room could be rented out due
to its size).
This includes all eelectricity bills,
the Internet (that I'm using now) hot water, gas, utilities.
ninjashogun: would spend most of
the money on can also become collateral.
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, given my high-risk profile what APR would you (personally) extend me on between $7K-$22.5K (amount I
take depends on APR) with no collateral except a registered Delaware C-Corp I'm currently full owner of (100%) going
to 90% after an investment clears
that I've committed
to -
the company has intellectual property including a patent
that is pending and
trademark
that has been assigned, as well
the equipment I
dub: after my house was burgled and an unopened one was used
to defraud
them :)
ninjashogun: More
to
the point, at
this point
taking
the employment you
talk of would entail abandoning my
team here, all of my work and living arrangements (about $150/month burn rate), as well as somehow moving
to an expensive city and working full
time
there. My startup would cease
to exist.
ninjashogun: I don't have
the
time
to
take employment, even
temporarily.
Two months ago I was invited
to give a demo with
the working prototype as part of closing a $150K investment. I need
to finish it.
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, because banks don't consider incorporated companies with assigned intellectual property
to be meaningful collateral?
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, yes, you are quite mistaken in your understanding
that I don't like
the paying back part.
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, I'm from
the USA but at
the moment I'm not living
there, I've been working on my proprietary hardware startup in a much lower-income country.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform i
think you have
to have a residence and income
BingoBoingo: mircea_popescu: Cause self esteem. Seriously
this shit started in
the 1980's
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, "then borrow it from whoever". Funny how
that goes, isn't it?
That loan is how I came into
this channel. It doesn't work like
that.
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, I am not interested in being involved with
the local mob. You seem
to consider
this a short-term
thing, but
that's not at all what I stated, is it?