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Comment by daenz | Hacker News Reader

Is this required reading for startup founders? It's way over my head. I get some of the core concepts, but reading about this stuff makes me wonder why growing a startup can't more simple.

I get that there are real world needs for things to be as complicated as they are, so that things can grow very quickly, with people aligned with incentives and committed to a common goal. But seriously, why does it feel like this level of complexity is the norm? And just one slip up and you've screwed all of your finances forever (among many other potential horrible outcomes).

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You ever try to buy a house? The loan you get means jackshit to the lender. Your loan is going to get bucketed and sold off into large funds. Those funds in the aggregate hold value. No one really cares if you, who you are, your house, etc, are a particularly good investment in the macro scale.

I suspect it’s similar in VC funding. You are just a company that sorta fits a conventional loan. In the macro sense, just a few need to hit, but they could care less about your special little company. You are packaged to investors.

I imagine a world where the government buys startup backed securities to prop up the tech sector, in which case you’ll see even more startups. Right now it’s any Joe Schmo with money that act like the Fed.

That way everyone and their mother can grab a loan for a house and a company, it’s a macabre form of socialism, uniquely American - so long as you make the monthly payments. Truthfully If I was a lender I’d have all my startups go public within a year and start paying back the debt via cashing out their stock, because that’s way more predictable than hoping your company becomes profitable or useful.

I think of it like any sufficiently complex board game or strategy game. You want to leverage current strategies and efforts into layers of compounding strategy. Example, when playing Age of Empires, Factorio, or even The Sims, early optimizations and efficiency get quicker growth and allow you to advance more quickly. E.g in The Sims, it would be how to optimize the time learning skills that get you promoted as quickly as possible and even timing when you sleep and eat. You don’t HAVE to make it difficult, but that’s how you “beat the game” quicker.

If you have a business model that aligns itself well to some kind of financial multiplier, like generating lots of float, then you could hire a good CFO to handle the difficult thinking.

If you can generate healthy floats (ie insurance companies, where I prepay months or years before I file a claim), then you don’t even need loans, you’re getting access to capital at 0% interest

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