jayparth

I disagree with this article. Of course your messaging is going to be different when selling a pickup truck and a SUV. If anything I see commonalities between Model X and Cybertruck- both are unashamed with their design, even though it might be impractical to some, or ugly.

This reminds me of English class in high school where we were made to read into themes and "literary devices." A lot of times the themes were substantial, and the authors intended them to mean something and convey a message to the reader. But many times they didn't- we were tasked with finding a theme so we would look for anything that resembled narrative so we could finish our essay.

This guy is looking too hard.

How do I follow people?

Agree with your point but I'd say {decades in which you were a child}!

The answer you're looking for is: you get started incrementally. It's definitely possible to get this company started incrementally. It's an exercise in being resourceful.

> If I walked into YC suggesting to build dorms, I'm sure I'd be laughed out.

Yet, that's exactly what this guy did. So either he had some traction going into YC (by being relentlessly resourceful) or this statement is false.

Perhaps founding the initiative....

Haha, I just realized the typo in the title. "What products have documentation?" -- most of them.

Thanks!

I'm in agreement with that sentiment. For any given opportunity, even if it's "obvious" that someone should have done it, doesn't mean it's been done before. If something seems like an opportunity you should probably try to validate it, instead of immediately discounting it. That's how I started my last company!

But there's no doubting that some sort of counter-intuitive or hidden insight is necessary. Even if that insight is: "people think this is obvious and not worth doing, but it actually IS worth doing." RE: Zero to One.

I think the key distinction is that there is a well-established infrastructure around software, such that the average SaaS founder (even 10 years ago) is/was not doing fundamentally new things with computers. If they were, they would probably need to understand computer science well. Take any moonshot ML company- they need quite deep technical depth and usually have a founder that has spent time in academia.

We are still at a point in Biotech where companies have to do fundamentally new things with their tech to succeed. If you were starting a company that applies CRISPR to X genetic disease, you might not need a Ph D. to start the company, because you can apply existing technology to solve that problem. But that begs the question: Why has no one else done it yet?

At the end of the day, you need a unique insight to start a large company. That means experience with either the problem space or the technology space is helpful. Not discouraging OP either, if you have a vision for what the future should look like, and can acquire talent/capital... anyone can start a massive company. So OP should try to acquire that vision.

Link for those who haven't read:

http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

Hey man, I still don't think you are understanding my point. This comment is actually pretty interesting:

> if it had been unity or unreal engine, would you have changed your opinion?

To me (again, to me. You could have a different interpretation, that's fine), the conversation was no longer about Improbable. It's about VC. The guy above him is arguing that a game engine does not have long term payoffs to justify the investments Fair got. But if they had made Unreal Engine, maybe it would have been worth it. It's not a bad comparison at all- Unreal Engine was made in a non-risky way, but if they HAD made it in a risky way, it might have been worth it to do.

> The idea that risk isn't a part of the discussion about why a company is laying off 40% of its work force doesn't seem like it has much merit.

When I commented, we were three degrees of separation away from Fair. So while this happened on a post about Fair, I just didn't get why it was relevant. But I see how my tone could have came off as dismissive. In truth I would rather have seen people debate the quoted comment, which is interesting, but the discussion got sidetracked, and I was trying to bring it back to the main point- I see how it could have been seen as dismissive for sure.

Your comment kind of bugs me. It's one line of content and four of person attacks. You've said that the responses have been explained, but you spent way more time insulting me than explaining. You said my tone would have been condescending if we were on Reddit, but you directly insulted me multiple times, and we're not on Reddit. Read your comment back to yourself. How would you feel if you received that? Are you proud of saying that to someone? I seriously don't think I said anything pointless. Even if it was pointless, there are way more respectful ways to say it, I was feeling down today and you made me feel worse.

I agree with you, but why was the person above me commenting on risk?

While it is true that those things happened with Unreal Engine, it was sideways from the discussion that was occurring, but presented as a refutation. Risk has nothing to do with the comment two tier above me. I'm just pointing that out.

This comment doesn't really make sense to me. To me, (paraphrasing heavily), the comment two tiers above you is trying to say, "The upside is not high enough as typical moonshot companies to raise as much as they did. Plus, they could have probably broken the problem down further."

The guy above you responds: "But these game engines had very high upside."

And you respond: "But those game engines didn't need high upfront investment. And none really do, you can make them cheaply."

That wasn't the point of the guy above. His point is, "There may be enough upside to building a really good game engine." The hypothesis of this company is by spending a lot of money building a really good game engine, they can get upside like Unreal. Whether or not that hypothesis makes sense is entirely a different discussion than: "Is there enough upside to justify this hypothesis", the question at hand.

He's just talking about a legal reorganization. "Uber Drivers LLC" contracts the employees which is wholly owned by Uber. I don't see how this would actually help them though. Under the new law, Amazon Flex drivers are also categorized as full time employees and the child company would still bear the costs of that

Are you looking at applications outside of sales demos? Might be useful for customer success, etc.