Reconsider (2015) | Hacker News Reader

Reconsider (2015)

m.signalvnoise.com

114 pointsalbi_lander23 comments

The article points out that there is room for many different models of building companies. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses. It's true, the VC lure of dollars and fame is one that gets pushed by many; as such, this type of counterpoint is useful to see and hear, and likely required reading for those wishing to create something on their own. One should at least consider whether building the thing of your dreams on your own is possible.

I thought about this article a lot since it was published. I might be going off the tangent a bit here but it might be relevant here

I do think it is possible to make create a company with properties mentioned in dhh's article that have novel technical challenges. I used to think that only consumer startups can have it because only there you get users and traffic. ITA software and Akamai comes to mind. In fact, scaling a consumer product is fairly common knowledge (every app except Whatsapp and Facebook is sharding databases, adding a cache line to it and going through roughly the same steps).

If you can make a good product for businesses that requires solving a problem only made soluble with recent technology advances (for example, multicores, reduced latency gap of RAM and flash storage), then you never need to worry about monetisations strategies, VCs, exits and other things. Maybe you need but it will be like dessert after dinner rather than salt in Indian food.

Ambitious, VC backed business has grown a few amazingly successful businesses, while many more have hopelessly dashed on the rocks. Do consumers ultimately win from this kind of king-making and gamesmanship? Within the ecosystem of a company, we certainly receive lots of benefits:

* Services we don't pay money for - Github, Google Search, Facebook Messenger

* Services we receive a hefty discount on (for now) - Uber and Lyft rides

* Ambitious projects that require hefty upfront investment - SpaceX, Tesla (all of the above)

On the macro level, I'm not qualified to say whether we could end up getting these benefits from self-funded or lifetime profitable businesses in the same sphere. But I fundamentally agree that not every entrepreneur needs to take over the world. Making your "dent in the universe" by providing a sustainable, considerate and quality (paid) service is a meaningful achievement and worthy goal.

So, this isn't a popular view here, but I think things like Google Search and Facebook Messenger are a large part of why the Web is a much worse place now than it was fifteen years ago. If you don't see the past decade and a half as a regression, then I could see agreeing with your argument. But I definitely do see it as one.

Define what is "worse" in that context for you. Without a proper definition I can't agree with you at all.

Worse regarding privacy concerns? Of course it is, I would never disagree with that.

Worse as an end user? Hell the fucking no. Before Google it was terribly hard to really find what you were looking for, I can't even imagine how many man-years humanity would have lost without Google Search.

It's absolutely worse as an end user, privacy issues aside. Everything loads slowly. My cursor jumps around and I'm never clicking what I intend to click. Things that should be paginated instead infini-scroll, and things that shouldn't be paginated are ("These five amazing photos will translate into 15 page impressions for us because you have to click next three times for each!")

Someone's got to pay the piper eventually. "Pay with your soul" services like Facebook and Google are not without their tradeoffs.

He has a point, but this is Hacker News. VCs most certainly do not want to invest in you if you just want to "make a dent". Everyone is searching for that next unicorn. If you don't want to be a unicorn, the VCs have no use for you.

"but this is Hacker News."

I don't think I understand what that means. HN has always had a rich mixture of VC-seeking entrepreneurs, spare-time hackers, software hackers, hardware hackers, greyhair DB analysts, academics and PhD students, and curious 9-5 bystanders.

The community certainly provides good publicity for YC, but I never got the impression that pg intended this board to be exclusively a place to talk about VC investment or what it takes to get it. Exactly the opposite in fact, a wide diversity of experience and subjects was (and still is) encouraged.

I have no way to gauge, but I'll bet HN members interested in surfing VC-infested waters are a small minority of the people here. This article is right on point for a large number in this community.

I rather think DHH is saying: don't try to be a unicorn. Don't take VC money, don't even look for it. Build a business starting with the resources you have on hand. End up happier with a profitable small business.

>He has a point, but this is Hacker News.

Hackers News has tens of thousands of readers (if not more) tons, if not most, of which are not in SV style VC startups. Including enterprise programmers and "lifestyle business" owners.

>Everyone is searching for that next unicorn. If you don't want to be a unicorn, the VCs have no use for you.

You also don't have use for the VCs, so that's a moot point. A business like Basecamp can be started on a credit card, or a simple bank loan.

Not every fund is a Greylock or a Sequoia. There are VC funds around who're interested in finding ideas that are simply scaleable, profitable businesses. You need to have the ambition to take a (relatively) small sum and return a good multiple, but that doesn't mean you have to be working in a $billion+ market.

The point of the article is that you don't need the VCs.

Far more HN commenters (and voters) identify against VC than with it.

Great article, I love the uncompromising tone.

> They’ve trained the media like obedient puppies to celebrate their process and worship their vocabulary. Oh, Series A! Cap tables! Vesting cliffs!

And woe betide the disobedient! Peter Thiel made Gawker an example of that.

I'll have a different perspective next time I watch Shark Tank.

This article only increased my disdain for Texas Pacific Group and Silver Lake Partners; who have fjnorked 2 different companies where I worked. I got RIFed on both occasions.

https://twitter.com/gaberivera/status/839261595519737856

Title should be: Reconsider (2015)

The message seems just as relevant today as it did two years ago.

Putting the year in the title of a submission is a convention on Hacker News. Having it helps readers place the article in context. Sometimes it's just "didn't I read this before." Sometimes it provides comments like "That was true then, but now there is another option" (thinking about Javascript tools, here). It might even avoid "bad experience on mobile" or "broken link" comments in some cases.

Or maybe a title that summarise the article better, like "You don't need to be unicorn (2015)".

Thanks! We've updated the title.

The only thing more upsetting than the omnipresent disruption talk, is DHH trying to take it down.

"I built Basecamp! It's moderately successful! So here's another 5,000 words essay on why everyone should do the same! In it, I say the exact same thing I have been saying for the last 10 years!"

Dude, we get it. You're not a unicorn because you chose not to. Great. Can we please move on.

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