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Comment by Ekaros | Hacker News Reader

I always found it extremely weird that no one runs even the most basic back of envelope calculations on things like this. Like how much power and at what cost we need to input or what is the throughput of some system and then how much we need to charge just to cover the building costs...

Most simple multiplication and division... Just to get some idea of unit economics. Thus do things make sense even in your own fantasy world of ultra-rich tech workers.

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Very simple reasons actually. VCs dont fund people based on logic, but on ability to BS.

Go hang out with some bootstrapped founders. They will have great common sense. If not they are dead.

What's stopping VCs or their staffs from double checking or keeping track after the money has been disbursed?

The same reason I'm slow to check my lottery tickets. Pre-check I can imagine the ticket has won. Post-check I know it hasn't.

People do. They get attacked for it actually. There was this blog post about an indoor wheat farm exhibition piece and it criticized how it actually consumes more land when you add in the land requirements for renewable energy. The comment section consisted mostly of people attacking the author.

There are plenty of people on HN who will tell you how growing LEDs are more efficient than sunlight and other nonsense to justify vertical farming.

I've always assumed VCs take gambles like this because they know it just takes a single success to cover their lost bets.

So being first to bet on a possible winner is probably statistically better than taking the time to sift through the actual details of these startup ideas.

It just needs to last long enough to sell it forward to more dumb money (e.g., Saudis).

Because in order to do this math you actually have to understand the business/product- which should tell you something - or there are is some hand waving bet that like “costs will come down with scale”

> Most simple multiplication and division... Just to get some idea of unit economics.

I always considered this to be the fundamental promise of vertical farming. Maximum efficiency and easy forecasting of outcomes. Basically, reducing farming to a function with several very controllable inputs and an easy computation yielding the outcome.

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