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Comment by fab1an | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting (in a "responsible conspiracy theorizing" kind of way) to note that there has been very little innovation in this space (with the exception of the very recent emergence of 'rolling funds'.) The VC model that funded Apple in the 80s is afaik pretty much the same to what Lemkin describes in the post for today.

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How many different ways of giving people money to start businesses could there be?

There's loans vs equity, structuring the company differently (C corp vs B corp), creating different legal incentives for employees to stay on (letting employees exercise their options more than 90 days after a departure, letting employees exercise their options during a follow-on investment round), the YC SAFE is relatively new if we're going back to the 80's...

There's a ton of ways to make things better, it's just never better for the investor (since the investor wants control).

I don't think it's the same. Apple would have never gotten funded today.

Sure they would. Apple wasn't a particularly special company when they were funded, new computer companies were a dime a dozen.

I disagree. It was a time when there wasn't much around to invest in and computers were "hot" and "new", and something everyone wanted to become a part of.

Interesting comment - care to elaborate on why Apple would have never been funded? Also, are you referring to the initial starting capital, or a later stage Apple?

A hardware startup ran by people with minimal experience in shipping hardware.

That doesn't mean much. An angel investor could have still liked the idea.

The thread is talking about VCs though.

have you ever tried raising money from an angel investor for a hardware startup?

because nobody would invest in a hippie with a half-finished hardware product these days

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