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Comment by pm90 | Hacker News Reader

Its not an unpopular opinion, but that Juicing thing was definitely an exception, not the norm.

As to why everyone is chasing unicorns, one of my friends who's actively trying to get funding for his hardware startup sums it this way: VC's would make more from 1 unicorn than 50 other mildly successful businesses, and the other 50 businesses would probably require just as much work as the unicorn.

Its a really fucked up calculus to be sure. I'm not sure what the solution is though. How do we encourage VC's to invest in more meaningful startups?

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Unfortunately in capitalism, the only carrot you have is profit. The question then becomes: How do we make "meaning" profitable? I really don't mean this as snark; if you could find a way to have helping the mentally ill increase shareholder value, you could probably make it work. I'm not arguing that this pursuit isn't horribly broken from a humanistic standpoint, merely that it might work and would be a lot more feasible than changing something which has become fundamental to how our world functions within this lifetime.

The problem is it's impossible to predict success in an early stage company. Optimal way to ensure profit is to place many bets and hope one pays off enough to cover the costs of the losers. Asymmetrical outcomes are a requirement for sane strategic investors.

If all you can do is buy lotto tickets, you are better off buying insane payoff opportunities than trying to pick which lotto tickets will have a higher frequency of payoff, but a much lower yield.

The point though is that these are not really lotto tickets. A lot of high-tech startups are working on monetizing some obscure technology, or inventing a more efficient way to do a task, or something along those lines. They are actually providing value, other than the payoff from their sale or IPO. I think we as a society are failing somewhat to give an appropriate monetary value to that kind of contribution.

The problem is that a VC doesn't care how much value a product provides to society. It only cares how much value it can extract for itself.

some VCs do look at what non monetary value their investment generates. I.e. Reddit.

Exception?

> A futuristic new kitchen appliance that is being called the "Keurig for food" could forever change home cooking. Called Tovala, the countertop machine is a broiler, steamer, oven, microwave, and toaster in one ... The price of the machine will eventually go as high as $279.

http://www.businessinsider.com/tovala-will-replace-every-coo...

> The June Intelligent Oven can detect what you’ve just popped into the oven, and will heat up or cool down based on how you’ve indicated you want it cooked. It’s connected to your phone, so it can tell you when your food is ready. This countertop convenience comes at a steep price of $1,495 per oven.

http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/June-Intelligent...

The unicorn thing is temporary. This will self-correct.

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