500 Startups admits it kept Australian partner in the dark | Hacker News Reader

500 Startups admits it kept Australian partner in the dark

techcrunch.com

Man I just loathe Australian government initiatives to support startups.

It's NEVER what is actually needed i.e easy to access cash or tax relief.

Instead it's the government pissing the money into an ecosystem of leech "advisors", "mentors", "incubators".

A parasitic ecosystem of hangers on to the idea of the startup.

Somehow in Australia the idea has become that the worst thing the government could do is directly support people to write code in their kitchens and ACTUALLY BUILD PRODUCTS.

Instead, the ecosystem of useless leeches/"advisors" has convinced the government that it should be the recipient of the cash.

It's vile trickery and charlatanism.

As a developer and entrepreneur, can I say to the government, please just chuck the money in the garbage bin / it's going to help startups just as much when it's in there.

Makes no ducking difference if Dave McClure managed to get 500 startups a cut of the pigs trough.

Seriously, go and have a look at the LaunchVic website, you might need to read it two or three times to realize there's actually literally NOTHING in there to actually directly support entrepreneurs. It's all indirect smoke and mirrors and complete bullshit.

Australian governments, please just stop saying "startup" and "entrepreneur" and instead go give the money to charity.

It's the same case in Thailand. Most of these "advisors" have never built a successful company or product. They have worked in companies and done well in "management" or they have started companies that are very good at raising funding but fall short when it comes to building a product or keeping customers and employees happy, and are usually incapable of making profit.

The ones that are good at building something (or at least focused on it) won't be wasting their time trying to "give back" (read: find other opportunities). Zuckerberg did some very minimal "giving back" while building Facebook IIRC (the biggest being an actually useful course he visited at Harvard called CS50, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFFs9UgOAlE)

Would be nice if you provided ideas for better execution. Instead you just ranted.

"Crony Capitalism"

So what do you propose? From the Launch Vic website, I see that companies can apply for funding, surely that's something. Not to mention that they're doing essentially what any incubator/accelerator does. Did you have issues, run into roadblocks when dealing with the Victorian government's startup ecosystem? BTW, I'm merely asking. I have no connection other than being a Melburnian and in the process of spinning up something myself...

Its always been true that cronyism rules the day when it comes to Australian governments' investments. I remember one of the very first 'successful' tech investments made in the 80's by the WA government, in a local electronics manufacturing firm which required funds to build up the production line for mass-producing PCB's and other electronic assemblies - without the small group of crony's that had assembled around this effort, there simply wouldn't have been any reason for the project.

In other words, Australia has the problem that in order to develop the market for the product, it has to develop the market locally - and as a very small nation with huge hubris, this means that projects like this, by necessity, attract the cronies.

So this has been encoded into the way the government operates: it has to address its efforts to the locals, or else there's nothing to build. And those locals don't see beyond their own small worlds - as is the case with Australians in general - when it comes to building something of true value in the international market.

There are definitely exceptions - I can think of a couple of successful investments into Australian startups in the 3d-printing space which, seemingly, have moved beyond this event horizon. But still, cronyism is as Australian as Two-up. Its a professional hazard, and a norm, in that small country.

I suppose this is why top bro-dawg Chris Sacca is retiring? It's not surprising as he did nothing to hide his bro-ner for fellow douchebag Travis Kalanick.

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