1,629 karma · joined October 15, 2020
I understand that it’s a paid service but you’re destroying conversion rate, and there’s no way there are enough countervailing benefits to gating your service behind sign up.
I wonder how much wisdom has been lost bc of this effect.
I feel like society needs to create a much larger incentive for thoughtful people to share their wisdom. Today, you stand to gain status & wealth, but a lot of thoughtful people like Jessica don't care about that.
I think the only solution is to somehow protect them from the disincentive (backlash from the internet mob), but I don't know how.
Is it possible to hustle all the time & not burn out? Yes, but it takes a special type of person who values the hustle, in and of itself, which is rare.
It's important to realize that there's no right or wrong with what you choose to value.
And, as an employee, changing your org's values is probably an impossible task.
Instead, get clear on what your values are. Then, find an environment where you're surrounded with people who share your values. You'll be much happier.
No, not nearly to the same extent.
Whether that's the case or not is actually besides my point.
My point is that OP isn't simply claiming that he "feels unsafe". He's likely claiming that he IS unsafe. And, the only reason his unsafe environment hasn't resulted in physical harm is due to his altered behavior.
That line of reasoning is cogent and rational, and therefore, your claims of emotionalism are largely uncalled for.
Sure, the author admits that violent crime rate is under control. But, implicit in his post, is the fact that this is only the case because residents adopt behavioral patterns that remove them from violent crime scenes.
Imagine you live in a neighborhood where walking on the right side of the street results in immediate decapitation. While it's true that you can simply always walk on the left side of the street and be 100% safe, most people would not call that a safe neighborhood.
Interesting hypothesis, but my intuition is that this effect is small. It should be easy to measure. Just take random matches, and study winrate when a player has beaten their opponent once before.
There's some threshold of pain over which it's reasonable to consider major restructuring of society, and it could be useful to have a discussion on where that threshold is, but the fact that you're comparing your current state to being in a Nazi labor camp doesn't make me think that's a good use of my time.
The disillusionment & accompanied emotional pain described by Kacynski simply doesn't pass the bar for me, especially when a bit of meditation and dedication to your mental health will bring happiness.
My understanding is that most of Kacynski’s disillusionment was born out of:
- a recognition of how artificial most people’s values and goals are
- an inability to find authentic & fulfilling values and goals
- an innate urge to be useful and important
Put another way, Kacynski didn’t want to be like the brainwashed masses that chase status, approval, and riches. But, when he looked around for better things to spend his time on, he didn’t find any bc technology is so advanced.
I think the alternative to burning everything down is learning how to disconnect from the need to feel important and useful. It’s this inability to disconnect from the need to be useful and authentic that ultimately causes the disillusionment.
The ability to do so starts with an acceptance of the absurdity of life and a release of one’s ego. To put it colloquially, learning to not take things so seriously.
The astute observation is that a lot of unhappiness is driven by over-socialization and a commitment to inauthentic, subjective values.
The solution, to tear down technology to force mankind to work on more primitive goals, only makes sense if there are no alternatives.
Thankfully there are many alternatives. First and foremost, I think people like Ted just need to realize that the yearning to be important and useful is natural, but something you can let go of if you stop taking life so seriously.
Right, but there's a time lag effect between when capital dries up and companies go belly up.
Many cash-guzzling companies had 12 months of runway. After layoffs and pivots to profitability, 12 months may get extended to 18-24 months, but ultimately, the traunch of businesses without real business fundamentals will shut down after cash runs out.
The capital constriction really started in Q32022. Here's a graph: https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Screenshot...
So, my guess is a significant wave of startup bankruptcies will begin Q3 of this year, and peak several quarters later (assuming markets stabilize around current levels).
Google has already done this. Waymo One is the name of Google's app, and it's live and serving customers already in Phoenix, AZ. Completely driverless - nobody but the passenger in the car.
Waymo One is the name of Google's app, and it's live and serving customers already in Phoenix, AZ.
Imo, the fact that Uber knows this, and is still partnering with Waymo is a sign of weakness bc Waymo's intention is very clearly to own the customer eventually.
$3.28 variable cost per ride is less than what Uber is paying its drivers (median pay is ~$10.88 per ride). I imagine it nets out significantly in SDC's favor after adding back in cost of gas, insurance, and maintenance. And, the $300k should decrease over time.
Since they’re aware, if the trend continues, they might actually believe this conformist archetype has equal or greater chance at success in today’s environment. If that's the case, it's probably bc the archetype tends to overlap with other skillsets that correlate with success (e.g. fundraising, recruiting, management).
Edit: After googling, the short answer is they regret it. Both founders do mental gymnastics to try to manage their regret, but it's apparent they regret it. Sources below.
My personal takeaway is to try to hold on to some percentage even when selling out e.g. rolling over 30% of your shares into the new entity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6qlUG3EbtU https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/03/alexis-ohanian-reflects-on-s...
Spent 5 years founding a startup that the vast majority of people here probably know. We raised healthy eight figures and failed to pivot to profitability before markets & investor sentiment turned on us. At the end of the road, we faced a critical decision: 1) Do a deep cut in team & revenue to get to profitability. Restart healthy growth with no clear path to exceeding our liquid pref stack 2) Fire sale.
We chose to do a fire sale that wiped out common shareholders. In hindsight, a fire sale was the right choice. It allowed me time to recover, and then get back into a new business that has thrived. More importantly, it gave me the necessary space to emotionally recover from a long journey, take a step back to learn from my mistakes, and healthily reset.
My advice to you:
- Take a deep breath. It might seem like the darkness will last forever, but the sun will rise again. However this fucked up situation turns out, you're going to be OK. Eventually, you're going to laugh at the pain you're experiencing now.
- Accept that everything in the past is a sunk cost, and your equity is worth 0. Yes, it sucks that you spent 10 years on a fat zero. But, you need to remain objective, and the facts are clear. The fair value of common shares today is 0, and any value creation is a function of future work, not past work.
- Appreciate the opportunity cost of your time. I don't know you personally, but if you're the type who will just start a new business after a long break, I'm willing to bet the expected value of your time is at least $1m/yr.
- Try to negotiate compensation with your board that clearly exceeds your opportunity cost. And, be generous in evaluating your opportunity cost - chances are you're underestimating your future self at this time.
- If you're unable to negotiate this package, quit.
- Get a founder coach if you don't have one yet. Someone who's been in the trenches and can relate with your situation. I can connect you with mine who is amazing, just reply here.
Best of luck friend, wish I could spend more time on this response.
Your long drawn out comment doesn’t actually support your core argument, which can be shortened to one sentence, copied above.
In fact, it’s ironic that you’re calling out the author for being self-centered when you, yourself, are presupposing that your subjective family values are best without any rhyme or reason.
Is it though? Although there's no upside, there's also little downside since deposits are at the top of the liquidation stack in the case of bankruptcy.
The further up the liquidation stack your capital goes, the least risk you're taking.
So, the biggest vote of confidence would be if big banks purchased First Republic equity. I would categorize offering FRC debt as a strong signal also (like JPM did). Offering FRC uninsured deposits is perhaps the weakest vote of confidence when it comes to transferring cash to FRC.
My hypothesis is that they don't actually believe in First Republic. They just want the contagion to not spread. And, sending uninsured deposits is actually the least risky way to do that since deposits are at the very top of the liquidation stack.
You do realize YC's equity returns from Airbnb & Doordash probably cover their entire history of funding startups?
1) Too much negative signaling risk when they don't make follow-on investments
2) Negative returns given the recent downturn
3) The increasing business need to make non-founder-friendly changes in late stage companies (e.g. replacing CEO)
4) Anu/Ali deciding to leave first to start their own fund
I wonder if any of these reasons is a predominant driver.
Put another way, the depositors are being made whole by the FDIC's deposit insurance fund, which is in turn funded by the banking sector's insurance premiums. So, the money here is basically being taken out of the banking sector's shareholder pockets (read: rich people).
And, it's clear keeping out of the news was not their strategy this weekend bc the CEO has voluntarily been making public statements in a successful attempt to drive account signups.