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Comment by socratesone | Hacker News Reader

That's an easy but lazy reduction, and not accurate.

- They raised from the public

- Founder comp tied to release of a product that works

- They are focused on making a product that works, not on optical theatrics (in fact one of their biggest weaknesses is they've been horrible at optics)

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> - They raised from the public

Not quite right. They raised from their own investors and the public, which may be part of the problem.

If their own investors bought into their own ICO to "seed" it, which tricked the public into thinking there was genuine demand, that might constitute fraud.

Ummm doesn’t a regular VC founded startup that IPOs does the exact same thing?

Some of them without even making money... actually loosing money!

If a startup never finds any paying customers, it will never IPO. The IPO is a separate step from the initial investment, governed by rules intended to protect the public. ICOs don't seem to represent anything of intrinsic value (e.g. a successful business) so the public probably faces greater danger from unscrupulous behavior.

In the biotech / pharma world, it's common for startups to IPO years before they have a single paying customer.

The difference between a biotech startup and many ICOs is that the former typically has years of validated and peer-reviewed scientific research backing up the hope of eventually having a product.

In that case, the "customers" are other scientists and drug companies that _consume_ the research, will pay for partnerships, will pay for research to be done by that lab, etc.. ICOs on the other hand don't have an acclaimed lab or anything special other than a PDF with some buzz-bullshit.

Or a startup could be paying for customers more than the customers pay them? And still IPO right? E.g.: Groupon?

> They are focused on making a product that works, not on optical theatrics (in fact one of their biggest weaknesses is they've been horrible at optics)

Is bad optics the new 'fake news' because it seems like the Breitmans have been focused on who controls the billion dollars they have.

> Founder comp tied to release of a product that works

Who decides what is a "product that works"?

Probably the foundation, which is already seemingly doing a good job at managing the money (and not just throwing it to the founders willynilly).

The foundation is doing exactly nothing. They are not spending money on development, marketing, education, outreach, nothing. They are sitting on about a billion dollars raised for the project, and twiddling their thumbs.

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