Hacker News Reader

I don’t think anyone is disagreeing that a lot of work needs to go into a concept before it can be funded, but Andy still took a lot more risk than the average VC or angel in backing Larry and Sergey when he did.

View on HN

I believe Google was already in the millions of searches territory by that point. What made Andy a risk taker in that case wasn't the traction (which would still be significant in todays terms with a vastly larger internet population) but rather that search was seen as a dead space. It would have been the equivalent of investing in podcasting in 2013, a space considered played out and dominated by existing players with no significant upside.

There was also the minor point that Larry and Sergey were just a couple of PhD students with no business and no clear path to revenue. Still a gutsy move which many of the current crop of angels and VC would pass on.

> Still a gutsy move which many of the current crop of angels and VC would pass on.

And some of them did and were brave enough to write it up:

https://www.bvp.com/portfolio/anti-portfolio

LOL- kudos on the guts to admit it. Their portfolio only has a few recognizable names but their anti-portfolio is Silicon Valley- HP, Google, Facebook, Tesla

Reply on news.ycombinator.com