753300+ entries in 0.516s
mircea_popescu: how great is
this,
they've invented
the free lunch (again)
mircea_popescu: BingoBoingo "Access
to a special education classroom, often called a "self-contained classroom or resource room", is valuable
to
the student with a disability."
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, likewise steve jobs did not know how
to make a $500B company when he was 25.
ninjashogun: asciilifeform, I don't know how
to
turn it into $8.5M. If I did I wouldn't be
talking about
the next 40 years, would I?
mircea_popescu: they can harp about obscure currency nobody heard about,
they still won't bow
to bitcoin
mircea_popescu: "We survive on donations averaging about 50 lei. Now is
the
time we ask. If everyone reading
this right now gave 25 lei, our fundraiser would be done within an hour."
ninjashogun: I don't htink $8.5M is a fortune. if I had
that in cash
today I wouldn't sit on it, I would do further startups.
mircea_popescu: i wish us schools went back
to
teaching logic and shit instead of all
this self esteem and marketing bs
they do
ninjashogun: I don't have
to be zuck
to repay $8.5M.
Tens of
thousands of people can do it, not just a few hundred billionaires.
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, fine. Lend me $17,000 now and at some point in my career I will repay you 500x (8.5M). I am 30 now and it has
to be in
the next 30 years.
ninjashogun: steve jobs could have borrowed $5000 from you and relent 500x as much. But you wouldn't have been interested.
That is $2.5M.
ninjashogun: instead, he had
to scam his friend for it. Just like Zuckerberg had
to scam some map guy out of $2000.
ninjashogun: More
to
the point - for our purposes - you would not have lent
the young Steve Jobs $5000 yourself, even if he had
to repay 10x
the amount, 50x
the amount, 100x
the amount, ore ven 500x
the amount (at any point in
the future) All of which would have been in his power.
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu,
the way I interpret
that is
that Steve Jobs used
the $5000
to start Apple and make his friend a billionaire.
ninjashogun: is
this about
the money jobs didn't share?
ozbot: Breakout (video game) - Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, in a lot of ways it's enshrined into
the way MANY people
think. Some of it is legal (only accredited investors can be
targeted; accredited investors display groupthink). Other parts of it are cultural - a lot of people just feel
the same way.
mircea_popescu: here's a little known anecodte, kinda instructive as
to
the sort of guy jobs was :
ninjashogun: I know it from
trying
to build a hardware business, and suddenly seeing
that none of
that sliver is interested.
ninjashogun: if
they were
two kids doing hte same
thing in just about any part of
the world,
they would have nothing 30 years later.
ninjashogun: To use another example. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built what
turned out
to be $500B company in very large part on
the investment climate in
the area.
ninjashogun: and his company may OR MAY NOT die. But if it
takes off, it's (in part) due
to investor sentiment.
ninjashogun: Now you repeat hte same
thing in Cal
Tech and he has a
term sheet for $1M at $3M valuation within 3 weeks of launch.
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, let me put it
to you like
this. If ughlol were farther along, and actually already convinced 10 engineers at his university
to be 'cofounders' for equity
totalling 5%, 95%
to him (which would show GREAT founder skill) and got some
traction. HIs company would still probably die, and
those 10 people would leave. Because he is in India.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform remember
the hot ukrainian chick ? anna whatever ?
mircea_popescu: you don't understand dood, i read in
the guardian
that
the us caught a bunch of russian spies by displaying a dazzling array of
technical superiority.
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, I've lived in Boston, New York, San Francisco, Paris, Berlin (a bit) as well as some Eastern European cities. I've been interested in startups in all of
them, have worked for one in
the first dot-com bubble in
the 90's. I can
tell
the difference between different climates and how people behave in
them.
ninjashogun: It shows you very clearly
the role
that VC money plays.
ThickAsThieves: problem is i'm not ready
to commit
to being a "CEO" of anything
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu,
the ansewr is very simple. he would not have gotten an investment or interest from peter
thiel. Or any VC. And nobody outside of 10,000 people would know
the word "facebook".
mircea_popescu: ninjashogun counterfactuals are good for reddit masturbation.
this isn't a good venue for it.
ThickAsThieves: if i had access
to reliable and worthy crypto developers i'd have probably spat out several companies and
things by now
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, let's walk
through it. If Facebook had been
the same in every way, except Mark Zuckerberg was
transplanted
to be an Oxford student instead (same skills, same drive, same ideas) - what would have happened?
mircea_popescu: ninjashogun none of
the examples you cut out of
the real world and pasted onto your model as "eventual upper bound results" have anything
to do with
the model itself.
mircea_popescu: ThickAsThieves so you're basically like
thickoshi... abandoned it ?
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, sorry what are you
talking about not working?
ninjashogun: The image of a startup is like a duck -calm above
the water but paddling like hell underneath.
mircea_popescu: ninjashogun no , it does not. it has nothing
to do with anything other
than
the particular way
the usg implements welfare for a certain subset of
the youth population.
ninjashogun: There are a
TON of errors
that are always hidden and swept under
the rug.
mircea_popescu: asciilifeform what
they use
that as a sort of cardano ?
ThickAsThieves: i did end up with some with some ATC, but haven't had
the chance
to keep up with it. it seems without
tender loving care it cannot
thrive.
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, my 'half-lie' model applies
to everything
that is new and being built.
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, and more importantly
those words allow
the problem
to be fixed.
ninjashogun: mircea_popescu, well
the main problem is
that you need
to reserve your hardest edge for when you need it
the most. I've spend very long hours discussing very deep
technical points without calling something "idiotic". It can be broken, wrong, unexpected,
totally incompatible, etc.
Those words are more specific.
mircea_popescu: anyway,
this vapid "half lie" model, and all
the cruddy webapps/mobile apps stuff has very little life left in it, even in
the fiat world.
mircea_popescu: ninjashogun what's
the problem with being called an idiot iyo ?
ninjashogun: + of
the investers, and in some cases
the customers who are early adopters and willing
to put up with buggy-ass #$#@$
ninjashogun: I agree.
The job of a founder is
to create a half-lie, and
the job of
the cofounders and early employees is
to add
the other half.
ninjashogun: Many early employees report
that founders are full of "half-lies".
ninjashogun: Likewise, I've
talked with MANY people associated with YCombinator-backed startups (the most famous incubator) and worked for one.
ninjashogun: but it helped
the startup hone in on what
the market wanted.
ninjashogun: that's a "scam" because it exposed functionality
that was a lie.
ninjashogun: There was a story about an MVP with fake buttons
that didn't do anything -
they just said "Download as Excel File" for example and see who clikced on it
to guage interest.
ninjashogun: Dimsler, I
think some aspects of recruiting cofounders, investors, and even customers, have something in common with 'scamming'. So is putting an MVP up.
ughlol: Dont get butthurt because I forgot
to say I love you.
ughlol: Dimsler: yeah yeah, blah. I love you
too. Happy?
ughlol: Will definitely keep
that in mind ninjashogun!
Thanks for
the introduction here, and sorry
that your rep went down.
Dimsler: teach him how
to be abetter scammer
ninjashogun: if
they're not interested you can get a firm no right away without also hearing
that you're an idiot.
ninjashogun: just remember not
to say enough
to make your startup more specific
than a category,
then you can never receive a "no" and will interest people who can work on it or help you with it.
only: much love ughlol, don't give up
the good fight
ughlol: ah well, need
to go now guys
ughlol: and mircea_popescu,
thanks for pointing out
that rent-seeking
thing.. I
think I understand what you mean. :) I'll work on changing
the idea and creating a prototype! <3
ninjashogun: just a few include: angellist, kickstarter and indiegogo, sell gold or points, b2b deals or referral fees,
there is even crypto stock if you want
to raise online funds.