Hacker News Reader

Comment by noad | Hacker News Reader

This is so asburd it feels like a story in bad movie. We have pushed finance & capital so far into the realm of fiction that it doesn't really make sense anymore.

Artificial growth for the sake of artificial growth, just so you can get to your exit and leave someone else holding the bag. Ponzi schemes at massive scale.

How did the startup/VC world become so entangled in all this bullshit capitalism?

View on HN

Same way they did in the 90s, lots and lots of dumb money.

My son and i have a tradition when my wife attends a nonprofit board meeting every other month. She leaves and we order some five guys on doordash while we play a PlayStation game. I use a new email every time and usually get free delivery and a coupon. Doordash loses, Five Guys loses, and we get some dude to deliver a burger.

Though according to the article only doordash loses here, not fove guys. Doordash pays the difference netween menu and paid price.

I have a vague sense that this exact scenario with pizza was covered in the Silicon Valley sitcom...

It was, they use it to bankrupt another startup so they can acquire them (and their employees). I'm wondering now which one happened first...

For a period of time when Uber was in China, a huge amount of revenue was from fraudulent rides that weren't actually happening.

There were smart investors who saw through the facade and didn't invest and there were smarter ones who saw through it and invested despite that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com