"So you get a number of good startups, a bigger number of lame startups, and a lot of capital tied up with the fates of these little companies."
Is there really that much capital tied up into the small, low investment required firms? (I mean, by definition they don't need a lot up front and current VCs aren't even structured to make such small investments.)
I don't know, but I have to wonder, because the elephant in the room, the single thing that makes it difficult to get enough money to solve "hard problems", is the brutal fact that SarBox was the last straw that closed the IPO window for all but the most exceptional firms.
Investing a lot of money in any single venture simply doesn't make sense any more, unless the firm is one of those exceptional ones (think Facebook) or you can see a way to get it bought by an existing big firm (MySpace is an appropriate mirror example).
I'm not too worried about failures to "invest" in "clean-tech, alternative fuel, renewable energy", for these government inspired and subsidized boondoggles have a long and unsuccessful history going back to the '70s (if you don't remember or know of the Synthetic Fuels Corporation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_Fuels_Corporation) and this geneal long lamentable history you should probably read up on it before being unhappy that the sector is none too healthy right now; for that matter, factor in NIMBY->BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything)).
(Which is not to say that some if this is both hard and high payoff: if we could just figure out how to grow oil rich algae in mass quantities that would be a game changer, but it's obviously very hard and unfortunately has yet to be cracked in 3 plus decades of effort.)
What I'm worried about is that we're unlikely to see the next FPGA type disruptive innovation, simply because so much investment is needed that getting it back in a reasonable way/time frame is unlikely at best. Yes, we'll see sustaining innovations, and there's a set of these low capital up front web sites that count as disruptive (Facebook is a great example here), but in general I fear we just aren't going to invent the future any more.
I think the real issue is, why does anyone think Dan Lyons is worth listening to? He has a long history of trolling and shilling, we shouldn't indulge that behavior or take him seriously.
That's an ad hominem attack, on the same level as 'oh, he'd say that of course, he's a politician.' When you do that, you lose the opportunity to examine the arguments he's presenting based on merit.
No, the more apropos argument would be "Oh, he'd say that of course, he's 'Tricky' Dick Nixon".
The parent poster is pointing out that Dan Lyons, not all pundits, has a very bad track record, one I'll note that goes back more than half a decade, and therefore bias in looking at what he says is warranted.
Which is an argument I find hard to disagree with. If he wasn't the author of Fake Steve Jobs I personally wouldn't be interested in a word he has to say; there are other people out there with more credibility covering what he does so he can be safely ignored.
6 comments
[ 15.7 ms ] story [ 15.4 ms ] threadIs there really that much capital tied up into the small, low investment required firms? (I mean, by definition they don't need a lot up front and current VCs aren't even structured to make such small investments.)
I don't know, but I have to wonder, because the elephant in the room, the single thing that makes it difficult to get enough money to solve "hard problems", is the brutal fact that SarBox was the last straw that closed the IPO window for all but the most exceptional firms.
Investing a lot of money in any single venture simply doesn't make sense any more, unless the firm is one of those exceptional ones (think Facebook) or you can see a way to get it bought by an existing big firm (MySpace is an appropriate mirror example).
I'm not too worried about failures to "invest" in "clean-tech, alternative fuel, renewable energy", for these government inspired and subsidized boondoggles have a long and unsuccessful history going back to the '70s (if you don't remember or know of the Synthetic Fuels Corporation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synthetic_Fuels_Corporation) and this geneal long lamentable history you should probably read up on it before being unhappy that the sector is none too healthy right now; for that matter, factor in NIMBY->BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything)).
(Which is not to say that some if this is both hard and high payoff: if we could just figure out how to grow oil rich algae in mass quantities that would be a game changer, but it's obviously very hard and unfortunately has yet to be cracked in 3 plus decades of effort.)
What I'm worried about is that we're unlikely to see the next FPGA type disruptive innovation, simply because so much investment is needed that getting it back in a reasonable way/time frame is unlikely at best. Yes, we'll see sustaining innovations, and there's a set of these low capital up front web sites that count as disruptive (Facebook is a great example here), but in general I fear we just aren't going to invent the future any more.
The parent poster is pointing out that Dan Lyons, not all pundits, has a very bad track record, one I'll note that goes back more than half a decade, and therefore bias in looking at what he says is warranted.
Which is an argument I find hard to disagree with. If he wasn't the author of Fake Steve Jobs I personally wouldn't be interested in a word he has to say; there are other people out there with more credibility covering what he does so he can be safely ignored.