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Comment by lionfish323 | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone have any thoughts on the blog post [0] linked at the end of the announcement? Is this actually how venture capitalists evaluate these sorts of things? That post feels like it approaches "conspiracy theory" levels of leaps [1] about the evolution of the product and its potential impacts from a company whose product offering doesn't really seem to have changed or expanded much in the past few years, and which feels from an outsider's perspective like it's generally being left in the dust by more modern competitors like GH's Codespaces.

[0] https://www.notboring.co/p/replit-remix-the-internet

[1] e.g., the CEO making vague tweets about "web3" = "Replit will be a vortex for talent, creativity, and economic activity online. It might become the operating system for the 21st Century, the platform on top of which much of the internet is built, remixed and monetized."

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> That post feels like it approaches "conspiracy theory" levels of leaps

While I don't agree that there is conspiracy going on, Replit's co-founder, amasad's post on entrepreneurship from 2016 kind of explains why his tweets outlining his outlook for the future of his company may come off as that:

I view entrepreneurship as means of reconciling the infinite and finite. You venture into your imagination, gather knowledge, and dream about a better world. But you have to bring some of that back to earth. You take a step -- no matter how small -- towards your imagined world in the real world.

This is not a one time thing, it's a recursive process. If your imagined possibilities became real then that's your new "finite". The process restarts and that's how we make progress.

...

I see this as the perfect framework for the work we do in technology. There is always a tension between what is and what could be. There are people and organizations who are stuck in the status quo (the finite). On the other hand, there are folks who are stuck in the what could be without any actionability (the infinite).

Taking a step into the infinite could be hard, but the hardest thing of all is bringing something back to the finite. The real art is coming up with the smallest possible task that can be done here and now.

https://amasad.me/kierkegaard

Can't believe I have to add "vortex" and "remix" to my marketing buzzword list.

Jokes aside, that post is at least insightful about their future trajectory? It definitely gives off the vibe that they're going for a platform/creator economy kind of monetization. I'm with you in that I'm skeptical it'll pay off, especially because the direct comparison they use (Roblox) is very different: it's a game that kids play on, not an "operating system".

They do mention concrete numbers.. doubled users to 10m in one year.

The valuation is still high for where the company is now. I personally think churn is going to be a huge issue for them and there is a huge uncertainty if they would be able to counter it, but I think it is unfair of you not to highlight that they do mention concrete numbers and show solid user tractions, which certainly counters your assertions that "nothing changed" in the last few years.

Where did you find the valuation figure? Or do you just mean the size of the new investment?

It's 80m on 800m valuation. It was on some tweet.

Not boring (packy McCormick) has a fund that invested in replit

Packy likes to use buzz worthy words that don't really mean much, but he means well.

That’s a sponsored newsletter post AFAICT. There are a handful of those that shill for companies willing to part with their dollar

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