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Comment by shadowtree | Hacker News Reader

The funniest piece is a16z bragging about how many startups they're now funding that are run by ex-Ubers.

Yes, let's assume people who did not work in a sane environment, who have never seen how to make a profit, yes, let's give them funding. Same BS as all the ex-Googlers who immediately ran most of their start ups into the ground (after 6-7 awesome funding rounds of course).

Let's be clear, the ex-Uber founders will make mint, given what happens in those endless funding round pyramids. But for anyone considering joining those rackets? Goooooood luck.

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Can you name a couple ex-Googlers who ran their startups into the ground after 6-7 rounds of funding? Or even 2-3 rounds...

Andy Rubin comes to mind but the list is very large and full of people you never heard of. Google is not very good at teaching their employees what it takes to run a successful company, their cash cow is just too successful and most people don't realize their contribution is close to zero and most of what they do doesn't make any difference.

> most people don't realize their contribution is close to zero and most of what they do doesn't make any difference.

I'm just here for the free pizza. :P

Ah right, like all other companies do ? At least Google engineers have the technical chops to master the tech side of a product. Everything else is mostly upto the individual anyway. Many Xooglers are quite successful at startups.

That's exactly my point and you don't seem to catch it, it's not what you can build, it's what you can sell. Focusing on the engineering prowess is moot when there's no market for the beautifully built Gizmo you spent so much VC money on.

Not only that, you definitely guessed wrong about what the market wanted and now all your effort meticulously reviewing every line of code is voided. Not to mention the over engineering which has become an actual liability.

Yes all Xooglers are stupid and don't do prior research.

Wait, Andy Rubin is your only example? What company has he started and then “run into the ground”?

I’m going to call bullshit. Have many Googlers started startups that failed? Yes, but that’s the default state for startups so it hardly seems notable. I doubt the failure rate for ex-Googler founders is any higher than for regular founders. In fact, I suspect it’s higher, if only because they’re probably more likely than the average founder to be able to raise a round, and that likely increases your success rate vs the average startup. But you’re still probably going to fail.

What I take exception to is the 6-7 rounds of funding. A tiny, tiny fraction of companies raise more than 3 rounds, so the idea that there’s a “very large list” of failed companies started by ex-Googlers who have raised 6-7 rounds is total hogwash. Your hand-waving “you’ve never heard of them” notwithstanding.

Which company has Rubin started that was not a huge commercial failure?

Android, Inc.

How was Android a commercial success?

Are you kidding me ? Mobile ad revenue for one ? This comment shows you are not acting in good faith or just plain anti Google.

This is funny. You're making the point Android is successful as a product because it provides google with "ad impressions" which is exactly my point, Google knows only how to make money one way, with ad impressions. Android the company wasn't successful commercially (no revenue from licensing, not self sustainable) and was acquired quite early when they realized it wouldn't be. Android itself is a huge money pit for Google, and it's worth it only because it creates an avenue to monetize mobile. In commercial terms that's a "loss leader", not a profitable product.

Stick to engineering, it's better.

In the same way that BMW builds "only cars" ? The Play Store gets 30% of in app purchases too. First party phones are sold at profits. The collective revenue of Google due to Android is a big net positive. Not to mention the stickiness to Google products that results too. You don't know anything about business and yet you call out "all the Googlers" who don't succeed at startups. Stick to trolling on HN and feeling good about yourself. Google and Googlers will march on.

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I would actually like to look at this dataset - my anecdotal experience is that ex-[Google|Twitter|Paypal|Facebook|Uber] etc. find it easier to get funding but their outcomes may be no different

It would have to be based on valuation built or ROI rather than outcomes becuase we all know the top-VCs almost always find a home for even their failed startups and PR it as a win

It depends on which roles the ex-Ubers were in and who they are paired with.

Ex-Uber engineers are probably just as good as ever. It's not like they were the ones tinkering with competition, business model, profitability, whatever.

Their task was to execute on engineering goals and Uber hires pretty good engineers to do that.

If you are a VC and want to fund a biotech startup, something in this promising crispr field, it makes more sense to invest into 100 ex-bigpharma-scientists, than into some smooth talkers that wear nice suits. The ideal situation is when founders are ex execs from big industry who actually know how stuff works, but VCs don't have this luxury of choice.

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