Silicon Valley's Big Lie 129
HughPickens.com writes: Danny Crichton writes at TechCrunch that startups in Silicon Valley run on an alchemy of ignorance and amnesia and that lying is a requisite and daily part of being a founder, the grease that keeps the startup flywheel running. Most startups fail. The vast, vast majority of startup employees will never exercise their options, let alone become millionaires while doing it. But founders have little choice as they sell their company to everyone, whether investors, employees, potential employees, or clients. "Founders have to tell the lie – that everything is fine, that a feature is going to launch even though the engineer for that feature hasn't been hired yet, that payroll will run even though the VC dollars are still nowhere on the horizon," writes Crichton. "For one of the most hyper-rational populations in the world, Silicon Valley runs off a myth about startup success, of the lowly founder conquering the world."
Re:They also believe (Score:5, Funny)
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If further energy production technologies are developed that continue to produce less and less pollution, and if humanity eventually concludes that it wants to stop mining Earth for whatever reaso
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I do not expect this to happen quickly, it'll be on a hundreds-of-years timescale.
Which rather underscores the point that idiots investing dollars today in pie-in-the-sky schemes like asteroid mining are most assuredly throwing their money away.
I think the better way of saying this is that it underscores the point that obstructionist idiots have held back progress substantially because they are incredibly short sighted, and we should have been to that point decades ago.
We went from cars to landing on the moon in less than 60 years.
It's now been almost another 60 years. What significant progress has been made, while you idiots are all wasting time oppressing and shooting at each other?
Exactly.
Re: They also believe (Score:2)
Don't be silly. We went from cars to the moon because two of the richest and most powerful countries funneled a significant part of their money, talent, and resorces to make it happen. And had deep pockets to survive multiple failures and ability to spend zillions of dollars.
Compare this to a startup that seems to have equally grandiose ambition but a fraction of the ability and resources.
Nobody is pulling you down from trying any of these moonshot ideas. But if you want people to really believe that you ha
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We went from cars to landing on the moon in less than 60 years.
It's now been almost another 60 years. What significant progress has been made
We invented the internet instead. You young people can't even begin to imagine what life was like before unlimited free porn.
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I guess he believes that the same way some believe the Red Sea was splitted in two by Moses and Jesus actually existed, died, resurrected and flew back to his Dad. In fact, the idea we will actually colonize space has its root from the same religious beliefs we inherited the world and must conquer it. At least from the protestant's view of the world. The man is created to engineer the world. It is just an extension of religion.
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It is just an extension of religion.
Just? Just? You really don't want to be on the wrong side of a religious pogrom. Religion has changed the world, and changed it again, for good or ill, since time immemorial.
The man is created to engineer the world.
Well no. Just us engineers. Most men aren't really capable of re-engineering the world. But some of us truly are. Edison. Bell. Marconi. Savery. Wright and Wright.
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Question: Are you one and the same as the GayWad guy and the Moo Cow guy?
There have been 4 "Silicon Valleys". (Score:5, Interesting)
People often refer to "Silicon Valley" as if it were a place, but it's more like a term for a generation of individuals and companies, rather than just a place. Confusingly, there have been 4 distinct generations of "Silicon Valley", all using the same name.
The First Silicon Valley was from the time of WWII to around 1980. This was the pre-Internet Silicon Valley, which was dominated by the defense industry, heavy manufacturing, and the electronics industry. Lockheed, Shockley, Fairchild, Intel and Hewlett-Packard were some of the companies from this time.
1980 proved to be a turning point. At this point we saw the rise of personal computing and networking. Computing was going mainstream. Defense and heavy industry gave way to light computer hardware and software. This was the Second Silicon Valley. Apple, Sun, SCO, Oracle, Cisco and NeXT made their names known.
Around 1995, at the dawn of the World Wide Web, we saw another transition take place. This was when Yahoo, Netscape, eBay, PayPal and other Web-related properties, whose main focus was software, took off. This was the Third Silicon Valley generation.
The Third Silicon Valley generation was pretty much destroyed by the tech stock market collapse in early 2000. For several years people were unsure if there would even be another generation of Silicon Valley.
Much later, around 2005, we saw the rise of the Fourth Silicon Valley. This is when companies like the revived Apple, Google, Facebook, and Twitter really started making themselves known. They aren't about software so much as they are about advertising and the collection of personal data, with computing merely a tool to enable this on a massive scale.
The Fourth Silicon Valley also corresponds to the influx of "Hipsters" into the industry. The focus of software and service shifted from being useful to the consumer toward being "pretty" and otherwise satiating the Hipsters' desire for "creativity". We all know the trouble this has caused, from Windows 8's awful user experience to the destruction of Firefox's UI, through to the utter decimation of GNOME.
With any luck, the Fourth Silicon Valley will be coming to an end soon. It has proven itself to be the worst so far, in terms of what it has produced, and the harm it has caused. Every industry needs a renewal periodically, and the Fourth Silicon Valley is due for one.
The Fifth Silicon Valley will likely be made up of companies like Tesla, who are trying to provide useful and innovative products to the masses. It should be noted that many of the people behind such ventures are from the Third Silicon Valley. Not being Hipsters, these are people who knew how to make a real difference, not just take the hard work of others and ruin it.
No, Fourth Silicon Valley, which is rife with Hipsters and social rejects, will not mine asteroids. But I think that the Fifth Silicon Valley very well could! Unlike the Fourth Silicon Valley, the Fifth Silicon Valley will likely be made up of people who truly are gifted, and who will bring improvements, rather than the devastation of computer hardware, software, privacy and usability that the Fourth Silicon Valley's Hipsters have subjected us to.
Re: There have been 4 "Silicon Valleys". (Score:1)
Are you talking about the Microsoft that was founded in New Mexico, and moved to Washington later on? Neither of those states even share a border with California!
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Microsoft wasn't a Silicon Valley company. It started in Albuquerque and moved to Redmond.
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Also Microsoft has primarily been floating on momentum, subterfuge and shady dealings since 2000.
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Would you say that it's a keen interest to replace systems based on human intervention, with systems based on algorithm and automation?
This can go two ways, it seems. On the one hand you can have automated systems competing to supplant entire industries while also maximizing their valuation as corporate entities: which means, taking all the money and keeping it, while putting entire industries out of work. For instance, transportation of goods. Truckers are a significant industry for employment and for the
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"No, Fourth Silicon Valley, which is rife with Hipsters and social rejects, will not mine asteroids. But I think that the Fifth Silicon Valley very well could!"
Yes, if Andrew Carnegie were alive today, he would live in Mountain View and call his company "Smeltly" rather than US Steel. But the ingathering of brainpower in the area will bring us new projects Let's allow them to bring an end to California's drought with cheap desalination.
Re:There have been 4 "Silicon Valleys". (Score:4)
Silicon Valley has some rock stars but the average technical talent is exceeded many other places for a fraction of the price.
The power of Silicon Valley is in personal networking. Recruiting, changing jobs, dynamic flow. The exact opposite of non-compete contracts demanded so many other places.
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This is interesting, but I don't think that hipsters are the culprits.
Let's look back at some history. I would argue that from the time that Hitler came into power in Germany to the failure of the Soviet economy in the 1980's, there was a strong and steady demand for technologies that did awesome stuff with matter (and with information to some extent). The demand for better weapons created a steady stream of spin-offs into the civilian sector. For example, we got satellites because Hitler wanted supersonic
Mildly impressive (Score:1)
When it comes to the F-35, mildly impressive is not an understatement.
Talking about big lie, from what I've read, the F-35 seems more like a marketing victory.
It's pretty much not stealthy but still is sold as stealthy like if it was the F-22 little brother. And let's not talk about some of the claims of its effectiveness against projected opponents.
The only "mildly impressive" thing about it is its helmet-mounted display system, still being improved. If well designed, it can vastly improve the ergonomics o
Amnesia? (Score:5, Interesting)
The graveyard from Santa Cruz, San Jose, all the way to Sacramento is huge, but this isn't amnesia. This is hope, and hope sells, and occasionally, hope pays off in huge ways. On the way through the graveyard, you get to learn what worked and what didn't.
Eventually, a handful get to the Holy Gates of IPOs, and maybe things go well from there. Slashdot, financially, is a mirror of being a member of this very set, a long ago huge IPO that kept becoming sold off in hopes of future success, but now itself is on the block.
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We disagree. People put their lives and karma in to trying to get a payoff, and there are certainly the charlatans and the self-deluded that believe that many/all of them could be huge.
Imitators have been rewarded, sometimes large, too. The great lie of entrepreneurship is that if you build a better mousetrap, the world will march to your door. Indeed invention plus innovation are only perhaps a third of the equation. St Steve Jobs taught us that extreme, vicious, unerring diligence can succeed, but first c
Re:Amnesia? (Score:4, Insightful)
You use extremes. You can learn a lot on the way through failures. If you're looking for founder-stock success on the way to your life of penthouses in Vegas, then yeah, you're stupid. If you're looking for a decent living evolving stuff, you might have success.
If you add up Apple, HP, Oracle, and other organizations that were born somewhere near Silicon Valley, and look at their market cap, it's larger than you can imagine. There is money seeking other fortune. It's how Capitalism works. Yeah, there are other tawdry forms of capitalism and elements that make you want to hurl. It's a pressure cooker of an existence for coders in an über high priced area.
Darwin wasn't wrong, just cruel.
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But that means it's no longer a market as we understand it, and no longer capitalism as it was envisioned.
When the money seeking other fortune is on a scale where it can't behave like micro-economics, it's time to observe the behaviors and ask how the system's working. Think of it as scalability issues. This has to be designed for. That's what the Fifth Silicon Valley might do, if they can be a little 'meta' about it.
We've already got many countries in the world where the capitalization of the country's pri
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You're not talking about the variations of capital I'm familiar with, rather, you're talking about political systems. Private banking is not Silicon Valley, and is a different subject altogether. And we're talking about the USA, which has models that are vastly more entrepreneurial than those of other countries. Yes, a few of those private banks fuel small portions of Silicon Valley, but as a fraction, it's almost insignificant.
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But that means it's no longer a market as we understand it, and no longer capitalism as it was envisioned.
This is a non sequitur. It does not follow that because Silicon Valley is a little weird and a little high pressure, that somehow we have to abandon our concepts of economics.
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Two things. First you're conflating market cap and GDP but they're not analogous at all. Market cap is what a company is worth. GDP is not what a country is worth, it's only the current economic output of a country. Total worth of a country is far more than its GDP numbers. For example, Yellowstone national park does not add anything to the GDP of the United States, yet no one can argue that Yellowstone is worthless.
If market capitalization is the only thing, does it still exist in the absence of humans?
No. Market cap requires humans to own stocks in a company. Robots and computers are not inte
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Check your premises. (Score:2, Insightful)
"For one of the most hyper-rational populations in the world"
That's part of the Big Lie, isn't it? Those greedy men who have least to offer will do their best to paint themselves as having the most to offer, and what better weapon has there been since the Renaissance than sophistry disguised as science, pulling those in just clever enough to know what they should be looking for, but too stupid to know whether they're witnessing it? It's the way of every salesman.
The rational man learns hard, finds an honest
Exploiters need chumps (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Exploiters need chumps (Score:4, Informative)
No, value can be created, something that Marxist theory conveniently ignores, just like you did above.
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Agreed, but a substantial amount is gaming the business and the trick is attracting and extracting investor dollars with full knowledge that there's little chance of success
I'll bet venture capitalists know that game, and are more skilled at avoiding tricksters than you are at tricking them.
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No, value can be created, something that Marxist theory conveniently ignores, just like you did above.
I thought in Marxist theory the workers' surplus labour created this added value, which capitalists took as profits?
It's not my understanding that Marx meant that there was some fixed amount of money which was just being moved from workers to capitalists. It was obvious from the Industrial Revolution that over all economic growth was happening.
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I thought in Marxist theory the workers' surplus labour created this added value, which capitalists took as profits?
Exactly which ignores that value can be created through trade, capital allocation and scientific inventions. In his world a rich person has money solely because s/he "stole" surplus value from workers.
In other words, capitalism allows for the creation of wealth in two forms: rent-seeking and creation of value. Marx correctly identified rent-seeking as an indefensible form of profit extraction and set out to vanish the entire system around it, including capital allocation and labor incentives, which are two
Not a myth if it really happens (Score:3)
Sure the chances are, as you say, low that the company you join will IPO and/or make it big.
That doesn't mea it doesn't happen though, and that the company you are joining might have an idea you like enough that you want to push to make it succeeded.
But even if you are just being cynical, there are still a lot of rewards to be had from joining a startup as (at least in CA) the pay is still really, really good thanks to large pools of VC money sloshing all over the place. There's a lot of room to navigate there in ways that mean your own personal success even if the company never hits it big.
Not as high as reward (Score:2)
And lots of high rent to suck it up
The extra among you can earn there more than makes up for the increased rent - I don't live there myself, but I have lots of friends that do.
Fuck you.
You don't have to live there you know, I don't. It is possible to work in the tech industry elsewhere, and if that's the kind of reactions you have to postings on an internet board you may want to strongly consider it.
Avoid companies that are there just to IPO (Score:5, Informative)
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That's the nature and purpose of your regular everyday Wall Street pyramid/ponzi scheme.
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Little ability to invest or plan for in the long term Is one of the biggest failures of capitalism. An example is the transcontinental railroad. That railroad was worth building, and unlike a lot of ventures, it could hardly be more obvious that it would be a huge boost to the economy and the nation, yet even with that the market could not raise the money necessary to finance the building of it. By the 1860s, the transcontinental was shifting from a dream to concrete plans, the technologies needed for st
IPOs (Score:1)
That's exactly right. The great companies stay private as long as possible. What has happened in SV is that the dogs are over-valued and then dumped on the public via an IPO - IPOs are used as exit strategies instead of a way of getting capital.
A perfect example is FitBit. There was no real reason for them to go public. They had enough working capital and investors to do anything they wanted. But they IPO'd at a ridiculous price and considering that the fitness band market is starting to slow down, there i
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once you have the product built, they will let you go before you get a chance to cash in.
That sounds like a joke, but it's not. I've seen it happen. Never work for a company that rips off its customers, because they will just as surely rip you off when the time comes.
Hope in Everlasting Life Beyond the IPO (Score:2, Insightful)
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From your neutral and measured tone, I'll assume you're not speaking from personal experience.
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From your neutral and measured tone, I'll assume you're not speaking from personal experience.
Yes, I was smart enough to avoid this sort of crap like the plague. I can't pay my mortgage on hopes and dreams.
Big lie? (Score:2)
Big secret: companies run like this even after going public, even after getting large and mature.
Re:Big lie? (Score:5, Insightful)
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+1 on Musk. Name one thing he's done without taxpayer support. One fucking thing.
Zip2. X.com/PayPal. There are two. Also, your implication that Tesla, SpaceX and Solar City are taxpayer supported is a bit questionable.
Yes, most of SpaceX's funding comes from NASA, but that's just because they're a big buyer of commercial orbital launch services. SpaceX is taxpayer supported in the same way that Lockheed-Martin is taxpayer supported.
Tesla did receive a big chunk of government money in the form of a $465M loan... which it paid back with interest, and not just on time but early. Tesla'
Casino Noise (Score:1)
Anyone who has been in a casino can hear all kinds of noise and it is all of people winning. You never hear the noise of people losing. That's only one lie of Silicon Valley and, indeed, of global pseudo-capitalism.
pseudo-capitalism: capitalism in which the cost of protecting property rights is paid for by taxing economic activity rather than the property rights themselves.
Which is the bigger lie? That pseudo-capitalism is capitalism or that all that noise you hear is an accurate statistical sample of t
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capitalism in which the cost of protecting property rights is paid for by taxing economic activity rather than the property rights themselves.
How do you tax property rights?
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capitalism in which the cost of protecting property rights is paid for by taxing economic activity rather than the property rights themselves.
How do you tax property rights?
Have you ever owned property? It is quite simple and called property tax.
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capitalism in which the cost of protecting property rights is paid for by taxing economic activity rather than the property rights themselves.
How do you tax property rights?
Have you ever owned property? It is quite simple and called property tax.
I wondered if that's what he was proposing, that all defense of property be funded by property taxes. Property tax isn't really a tax on property rights, though. And in any case property tax does end up being a tax on economic activity also, or at least on economic value, which is determined by economic activity. So I don't see the point.
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All legitimate government is a mutual insurance company.
One may ask what it is legitimate for a government to insure and that is a good question but if one posits "capitalism" and does not start with property rights, what does the government insure and what is the basis for underwriting hence charging insurance premiums?
The insurance premium one pays on a property right is going to be actuarially calculated based on multiple factors, one of which is the value of the property. This is the case with _all_ pr
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And in any case property tax does end up being a tax on economic activity also, or at least on economic value, which is determined by economic activity.
The Broken Window Fallacy is the classic counterexample. Among other things, it's a means to disengage (and of course, tax) economic activity from the value of property.
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And in any case property tax does end up being a tax on economic activity also, or at least on economic value, which is determined by economic activity.
The Broken Window Fallacy is the classic counterexample. Among other things, it's a means to disengage (and of course, tax) economic activity from the value of property.
I agree that the Broken Window Fallacy is a fallacy. I don't see how it's a counterexample to the claim that property tax is a tax on economic activity. Can you elaborate?
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I don't see how it's a counterexample to the claim that property tax is a tax on economic activity. Can you elaborate?
Well, first, there is the obvious. Property taxes don't tax economic activity. If I don't own property, I can still generate economic activity, but economic activity that isn't taxed. Conversely, I can own land which is left fallow. The land would have inherent value, despite my lack of use of it, because of potential economic activity and such. So I would pay a tax on something that doesn't actually generate economic activity.
Second, once a government entity collects taxes via one of these particular me
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Property tax is still an indirect tax on economic activity, as I pointed out above, since the value of property is defined by economic activity (whether the property is actually used or not), and since property tax directly affects the cost of all economic activity involving property which, ultimately, is all economic activity or so close to all as makes no difference. There may be some business, somewhere, which requires no capital expenditures and takes place entirely on public land, but it certainly isn'
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since the value of property is defined by economic activity
It's not. For example, a fancy mansion is quite expensive, but it doesn't generate or represent economic activity. Instead it is contrary status signaling - namely, I've expended a considerable amount of wealth to build and maintain this mansion.
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Tricky one. A property has intrinsic value due to benefits that could be derived from it. If you're not deriving those benefits the property doesn't lose its value.
plans and term sheets (Score:4, Interesting)
There are a lot of reasons to criticize Silicon Valley, but being positive about a plan and having to deal with difficult term sheets are hollow complaints.
When you start ANY new project, there is a period of time when the project is not funded and does not have the necessary people to get it done. Startups are no different in selling a dream than any university professor, large company project lead, or government program manager.
The main point of TFA is that startup employees are starting to get more sophisticated in evaluating stock options coming from the common pool compared to investors' preferred shares. Preferred shares and liquidation preferences are tools investors use to reduce risk, and they are detrimental to employees (and founders) of a startup... except that without those investors, nothing could happen. Investors are going to get leverage somehow, and if you're smart, these clauses are not a problem.
Inflated valuations compound these issues. It should be obvious that early high valuations are bad for employees. Potential startup employees SHOULD understand that going to work for a company that is highly valued and has large investments offers much less financial growth opportunity than working for a company with a low valuation and small investment.
If you're a founder, keeping your valuation low during early stages of a startup company is much, MUCH smarter than arguing for a high valuation. This push for early high valuations is driven by lots of money sloshing around looking for a place to sit. That is a legitimate problem in Silicon Valley. As a founder, it may sound great to take in an extra $10 million, but if you don't need that money and can't actually justify that valuation, you've limited your company's future options (no IPO for you) and made it much harder to hire smart employees.
Meh (Score:2)
Contrary to what the article says VCs and employees are very much aware that 1-in-100 startups make it and the rest don't. VCs invest in 100 companies to mitigate the risk, developers keep an eye in other companies in the valley that seem to be well in their way to IPO and switch over. A ton of my friends moved to Facebook and Twitter about a year or two before IPO.
Really which idiot wouldn't be aware of this... ah the article was written by Hugh Pickens... Never mind.
Every programmer is an optimist (Score:2)
This time it WILL work! The mantra of the developer.
So is it that difficult to translate the same ethos into business: this time I will make it big! Whether there is any cold, hard, lying involved or whether the person touting for a VC payout truly believes what they are saying - that doesn't matter. A VC would have to be a particular kind of fool to be dragged in by the enthusiasm or "irrational exuberance" (to use a term that described the financial crash) and to simply hand out megabucks because one par
Ok, well, let's give up then (Score:1)
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You're quite sure that turning the lights off is still up to you? An electric circuit has switches at both ends ;)
I suspect you're being sarcastic but you might as well be sincere for all the difference it makes. It's the system of continually ramping up the jackpots and pay-outs that is failing. It might be a natural consequence of market capitalism where people cannot fully inform themselves about all things.
In fact, with regard to public valuation, it's impossible for people to accurately inform themselv
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The myth of startup success is thinking that any given one is likely to be worth anything. There are always startups that thrive and grow incredibly large.
The idea that you can start a business, or get in early, and become a billionaire drives a lot of economic growth. People have ideas. Most of them are dumb, but you can't tell the dumb ones from the brilliant ones. (Going up against Altavista in search looked dumb at the time.) People put incredible amounts of work into making their company and id
It's not just startups (Score:3)
It's called "the Geek lottery"... (Score:5, Insightful)
...and while it has significantly better odds than the actual lottery, it's much the same thing. Part of what drives the Valley -- and the IT startup industry in general -- is that it's very easy to track down large numbers of people who have, in fact, become millionaires (or better) through stock options and buy outs. It is a siren song that occasionally pays off.
The problem since the late 1990s is that vast amounts of capital have distorted the natural harsh realities of running a business, not to mention Economics 101. Too many tech startup business plans are, in effect, "Get funding. Create buzz. Get more funding. Sell out to a firm that actually makes money or go public." It occasionally works -- and all you have to do is read the industry press to see the multi-billion-dollar IPOs/acquisitions that never panned out.
Now, excuse me while I go back to work on my indie game and my graphic novel. :-) ..bruce..
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You are getting a salary like any other job, and you have the chance of becoming rich on top of that, without any more investment. Doesn't seem like a lie to me.
As long as you don't consider the the value of your stock options as part of your compensation, I would agree. If you are making as much in salary and other benefits that have current value (health care, retirement plans, working conditions, etc.) than you would at another job without options, then it is not a lie. If, on the other hand, you are forgoing some salary in exchange for a future possible value (stock options), then it is likely a lie (or at least a gamble with low odds).
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It is better than a lottery because you are getting paid a good salary while you do it. I don't see the problem. You are getting a salary like any other job, and you have the chance of becoming rich on top of that, without any more investment. Doesn't seem like a lie to me.
Well, yes, but presumably the lies come when they use stock options as "jam tomorrow".
Profits are generally relative to risk (Score:3)
Sure things have low profit margins. Things that could turn you into a billionaire or whatever are going to be long shots.
Ideally what you want to do is hedge. This is not really possible in employment because time is time. But with investments you want to have the bulk of your capital in a sure thing and a reasonable amount in speculative investments.
As regards employment in a start up the way to manage this is with the ratio of pay versus stock options.
To the extent that you judge your start up to be a sure thing or a risky proposition... you are going to want to adjust the balance of stock options versus salary. Riskier jobs should have more upfront salary where as more certain enterprises can have more stock options. Obviously it is in the interest of either organization to sell you the opposite.
A risky venture's interests are in selling you options because if everything goes wrong they paid you with monopoly money. And the reliable entity is effectively paying you more with stock options than with salary so they're going to be inclined to pay you with just straight money instead.
Part of negotiating for pay is understanding what is in your interests and leveraging your value to get what you want.
A company that is going down in flames should pay you in cash... even checks bounce. This was something that was going on with General Motors before their last default. They were paying their suppliers with IOUs. That's entirely unacceptable. A company with shaky financials hands you an IOU and you respond with "no sale".
If the company has solid financials then you say "I'll give this to you on credit"... and then set the interest rate to whatever the banks say is correct... have the bank finance it on the other company's credit rating.
Anyway... point is... if you're being paid mostly in stock options in a start up in SV... the only companies you want to accept that from are sure things.
Sure sure... you can win the lottery. Just know that's what you're doing.
Silicon Valley (Score:1)
Just another gold rush, with all the same hustlers you see everywhere else. The Big Lie always works on virtually everybody. Everybody go home now, nothing to see here, *everything is fine*
Investors Want to Believe, So (Score:2)
They fight to be the early investors, prime the founder/execs to keep pumping, go through rounds 1, 2, & 3 and keep pumping everyone.
Standard operating procedure.
Hyper-rational? (Score:1)
it only needs to work once (Score:3)
I'd worked at nine different startups until I finally got reasonably lucky. Seriously, that is roughly the odds. Somewhere around ten percent of them are really successful. And that is honestly all you need. Is it really any worse than working as second assistant icon bezel engineer at some giant company on a project that you know will get killed anyway in the next reorg? The pay is roughly the same and the frustration and alienation level are comparable, if for different reasons.
Startups can be a lot of fun, especially if you don't get too emotionally attached or take it too seriously. And all you need is to be in the right place at the right time once and you can retire to a monastery in Bhutan or go fly-fishing in Montana. That isn't too bad a deal.
As for the lying part, I'd more accurately describe it as a kind of self-delusion or cognitive dissonance. One of the hard parts about being the founder of a company is that 24/7 you need to be positive and upbeat. My own experience in the founders seat and getting a great many doors slammed in my face by VCs is that if you don't believe in what you are doing, no one else will. Rejection can only make you stronger.
Huh? (Score:2)
Only a small fraction of startups succeed. Obviously, if yours doesn't, your options won't be worth anything.
And, yeah, planning to launch features that you haven't hired the engineers for yet isn't a lie, it's planning.
DNA Valley (Score:2)
I don't see it that way (Score:1)
While I admit things have changed in the past twenty years, my time in Si Valley wasn't all about working for cynical manipulators. As one poster mentioned, the Valley went through various phases. I had the opportunity to work for several companies circa 1980 to 2008. Some were better than others. Some succeeded; others failed in interesting ways -- occasionally snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
But in a couple of the cases I saw first hand, the founders had great ideas. And some of them were b
Message from Airwindows.com founder (Score:2)
Perhaps it's because you are looking to become rich beyond the dreams of avarice selling people an address book, to-do lists and email mass marketing, using a splashy website with big excited-looking people from stock photography. I see that
By using the Site and Application, you agree to comply with and be legally bound by the terms and conditions of these Terms of Service ("Terms"), whether or not you become a registered user of the Services.
and further that
YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT, BY ACCESSING OR USING THE SITE, APPLICATION OR SERVICES OR BY DOWNLOADING OR POSTING ANY CONTENT FROM OR ON THE SITE, VIA THE APPLICATION OR THROUGH THE SERVICES, OR BY PARTICIPATING IN THE REFERRAL PROGRAM, YOU ARE INDICATING THAT YOU HAVE READ, AND THAT YOU UNDERSTAND AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THESE TERMS, WHETHER OR NOT YOU HAVE REGISTERED WITH THE SITE AND APPLICATION. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS, THEN YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO ACCESS OR USE THE SITE, APPLICATION, SERVICES, OR COLLECTIVE CONTENT OR TO PARTICIPATE IN THE REFERRAL PROGRAM.
I'm looking for content-acquiring behaviors but mostly what I'm seeing is a pattern where your company connects a service with a customer and is then paid instead of paying the service provider: plus if there are disputes, the service provider can skip ar
Re: (Score:1)
Not off topic! It used to be cows and still has cows or it did the last time I was there. I admit that was ages ago.