[HN Gopher] The Next New Thing: Venture Capital Stories
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The Next New Thing: Venture Capital Stories
Author : andsoitis
Score : 17 points
Date : 2023-08-20 14:16 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (computerhistory.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (computerhistory.org)
| [deleted]
| spaceguillotine wrote:
| I see the growth of VC backed companies leading to the downfall
| of stable 20 year career path and loyalty to employee quality of
| life with everyone chasing this lottery model of hitting it big
| using VC money and selling out the company with an idea and
| exploiting more and more people to get it done.
|
| How much of this innovation is baed on tech that was created and
| funded with public money and gov grants and then privatized when
| it became commercial and profitable. Sure seems like we stopped
| advancing the science of the commons when VCs started growing in
| the 80s along with bank deregulation.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| Stable 20 year career paths are only possible with stable and
| large rent seeking companies under some form of govt.
| protection or crony capitalism.
|
| > How much of this innovation is baed on tech that was created
| and funded with public money and gov grants and then privatized
| when it became commercial and profitable
|
| Very little compared to the amount that goes in after
| privatization. Also look at the alternative, if the govt
| prevents commercialization even if a single cent of public
| money is invested, there will be lesser businesses, lesser
| jobs, etc.
|
| > > How much of this innovation is baed on tech that was
| created and funded with public money and gov grants and then
| privatized when it became commercial and profitable
|
| It is strange to take this stance. Because it can be asked the
| other way too.
|
| How much of that govt money initially came from taxes from
| those that businesses paid?
|
| https://www.businessroundtable.org/archive/media/news-releas...
|
| Always think of second-order effects (e.g. Canada now asking
| Meta to allow news back on its site).
| nico wrote:
| > How much of this innovation is baed on tech that was created
| and funded with public money and gov grants and then privatized
| when it became commercial and profitable
|
| Or built on top of open source that then was never
| contributed/donated back to
| burlesona wrote:
| I think this has only been the case for the dark ages after the
| Great Recession where we were stuck at zero percent interest.
| Zero percent interest breaks a lot of the economy because it
| means there is basically nothing prudent you can do with your
| cash, it either wastes away to inflation or you have to gamble
| with it. So everyone started gambling, and one manifestation of
| this was a surge of very questionable VC-backed companies with
| no real business model.
|
| If the US will use fiscal policy to err on the side of over-
| stimulating rather than under-stimulating going forward, as it
| has in the COVID aftermath, we can keep the natural rate of
| interest positive and the whole economy (including VC) will be
| a lot healthier.
| shrimpx wrote:
| > questionable VC-backed companies with no real business
| model
|
| The gig economy is the poster child for this new style of VC.
| choppaface wrote:
| "let me know how I can be helpful"
|
| This take on VC history is incredibly specious and reads like a
| bunch of country club boys taking advantage of the CH writer's
| "unbiased" tone because they couldn't get their edits approved in
| Wikipedia.
|
| Missing from the story:
|
| * Radar and stealth development and US Gov investment in
| Stanford, MIT, etc, that predates much of the VC comments in this
| article. US Taxpayers made a huge investment in SV.
|
| * It touches on Apple but totally ignores Steve Jobs relationship
| with the Apple Board
|
| * Modern textbook examples of VC Boardroom greed e.g. Pets.com,
| Broadcast.com, Paypal, Uber, Wework, etc etc SPACS especially
|
| * The move to megacap Founder-owned companies E.g. Facebook,
| Airbnb, Snap, Google. Historically these examples cement the
| relative uselessness of VCs in internet endeavors that are much
| less capital-intensive vs hardware.
|
| It's a decent article on how VCs _see themselves as being
| helpful_ but an unabashed sign that the biases of the Computer
| History Museum.
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(page generated 2023-08-20 23:01 UTC)