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Comment by edward8628 | Hacker News Reader

6 points·edward8628··8 comments

This site seems to auto-translate itself into my browser’s locale. Interesting approach but probably not the right choice if your audience is the tech crowd. I’m perfectly fluent in English, thank you very much.

I suppose it’s a clue that the whole thing was copy-edited or written using LLM. Not reading it.

>A VC knows that out of 20 investments: 10 will go to zero. 5 will return the money. 4 will make decent returns. 1 will be a unicorn.

From a quick glance at real data, it looks more like 1 in 77 venture backed startups will be a unicorn. Out of 20 startups, 12 will be gone within 7 years, and the majority of the remaining ones will still lose money. Funnily enough, even most unicorns aren't profitable right now. So the real game being played here is to time the exit on that one overvalued company before the market turns. It's not about power laws, it's about preying on irrational markets.

A VC knows that out of 20 investments: 10 will go to zero. 5 will return the money. 4 will make decent returns. 1 will be a unicorn.

And that is why VC funds never fail!

Except ~25% of funds don't return anything to their investors, so no it's not.

This is why taking investments too early is usually a mistake. It locks you in to one hand. Of course, you can pivot, but it is much harder with investors looking over your shoulder.

How does such a post land on the frontpage :)

To successfully execute that strategy you need enough resources to survive losing multiple times. This is one reason why it's not a meritocracy: Founders come overwhelmingly from upper middle class backgrounds, where one or two or three failed startups doesn't ruin your life.

Thanks ChatGPT. Really بعيد insightful read.

AI slop.

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