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Comment by danhak | Hacker News Reader

But this notion is incompatible with capitalism itself.

The idea of capitalism is that capital accumulates in the hands of those who figure out how best to deploy and protect it. Investors, not Zhu, are the ones with the track record and experience.

Trusting them to be stewards of capital is a better bet than trusting an eccentric, unproven founder who decides to experiment with LSD for the very first time before a big pitch.

If Zhu had managed a successful exit, he would have established that track record, accumulated some capital of his own and bought himself the leeway to be as eccentric as he wishes in the future. See: Elon Musk.

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I'm not suggesting that startups be given free capital; I'm suggesting that we find a way to make capital less necessary, i.e. lower the stakes.

At the extreme, if starting a company only requires pocket change, then nobody (society, investors, or anyone else) has much to lose in letting an unproven founder do their thing.

There are many, many successful bootstrapped software businesses out there. It's not as though founders in this industry don't already have a choice about whether or not to seek outside investment, and to consider all the relevant tradeoffs.

In what ways could capital be made less necessary?

> In what ways could capital be made less necessary?

By reducing the cost of anything and everything that startups spend money on.

(And for the largest item in many budgets, namely employee costs... in the presence of an adequate social safety net, cash-strapped startups could pay employees in equity rather than cash, and they could stick around for as long as they thought it might be worth something in the end).

Somewhat separately, what struck me from the article is that Zhu's controversial moves generally didn't involve bad business decisions, but rather failing to impress investors at a moment when the company needed the money. It would be better if that need for money were reduced, and we could all see how this type of experimental style turns out.

If dosed properly, it could have made a substantial positive impact. Certainly there is risk involved, but then most things are risky when running a business. Going for safety leads to employment, not to running a company.

Do you believe taking a psychotropic drug for the very first time before a big pitch--before having any sense of what a proper dose might be--is on the the reasonable side of the spectrum between "risky" and "reckless"?

> before having any sense of what a proper dose might be

Did he really not have _any_ sense of a proper dose? Seems unlikely.

I will say that hiring people who are risk averse is great for middle managers who will say NO to most opportunities because they're more afraid of failure than they are interested in opportunity.

Hire risk takers and you get risk takers.

> The idea of capitalism is that capital accumulates in the hands of those who figure out how best to deploy and protect it.

1. Unlike income, there is little relationship between capital and most measures of intelligence.

2. Most private capital in America is inherited.

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