Do you support sustainability, social responsibility, tech ethics, or trust and safety? Congratulations, you’re an enemy of progress. That’s according to the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.
What we have now is barely capitalism. Back in the day, companies actually competed. Microsoft wouldn’t make a good version of Word for Mac, so Apple reverse engineered the format and created their own office suite that interoperated.
If anyone tried something like that now they’d get sued or get bought. In fact, the practice of simply buying potential competitors is fairly common. Facebook buying upstart social media app Instagram is just one example.
If there’s no competition, markets can’t work. And to have competition you need to let businesses fail. And to let businesses fail you need a robust safety net so people aren’t destitute when some idiot like Musk drives a company into the ground.
No true scotsman would say such a thing.
I’m just gonna be straight up that probably none of you have any real experience with VC. Just statistically, it’s probably the case. It’s anecdotal, but I want to share my story.
I helped found a company about three years ago. It’s a software/ services company that focuses on specific kinds of climate change risk. No I won’t tell you who we are. Anyways, me and my cofounders are first time founders, although we both have built business segments within companies, this was our first time in our own. We did try for VC that first year. We basically got rejected all around. What I learned is that the basic function of VC isn’t to fund good ideas. It’s a filter to keep opportunities in the hands of those who already have them. It’s a kind of social filter to make sure only the “right” kind of people get funded. It’s pure credentialism and institutionalism. Anyways, several of our competitors took the cash. As a result, they ballooned in head count and we’re forced to do things the way the vcs expected them to. As a result, almost all of these companies failed or pivoted. We didn’t get funded. We got rejected by all fronts. Instead we just built our client base one brick at a time. Well, now their customers are our customers. We’re signing deals with the big names and still haven’t taken VC money. We’ve got the best in class technology and they are bleeding money.
VC is a poison pill. It’s not there to drive innovation but to filter down who has access to opportunities. Their ideas about what works or doesn’t are bad, and largely driven by the culture they are apart of. They worship elitism and credentials, but will the respect for those who are willing to do the work. It’s inherently extractive. They add nothing. Want to kill a business? Take VC money.
This comment doesn’t even pass the smell test.
If every company that took VC money failed, VCs wouldn’t make any money.
The reality is MOST VC investments fail, but the few who make it are home runs. This is how they make money. The risk/reward of your company was just not a favorable investment for them. Whether it’s because you went to an Ivy League or not is irrelevant.
Without VCs, many of those homeruns would never be able to get off the ground and the US economy would be significantly less dynamic
You are free to take your great idea to VC and see if they get funded bro. I think they are a complete joke at this point.
I don’t have a good business idea, not everyone has to. That’s not even what we’re talking about.
VC is clearly not “a joke”. All you have to do is Google “major companies that took VC funding” to see the impact of it. Of course this leaves out the thousands of others that failed, but long term the winners are going to have a very positive impact on driving innovation.
You may say “those companies would have succeeded anyway” and maybe so, but I doubt it would have happened nearly as fast, if at all.
VC today isn’t VC 20 years ago isnt VC 40 years ago.
VC today has ridiculous expectations on ROI and it re-enforces poor decision making, which, imo, brings down companies that might otherwise have been successful. Its part of a culture that was propped up by access to ridiculously cheap money. Modern VC is a dice roll at best, maybe worse.
Who are all these extremist wackos who don’t already want to abolish capitalism?
Capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system. It’s not perfect, but neither is any other system.
Industrialization lifts people out of poverty, capitalism sinks them into poverty by stealing the value of their labor as profit.
Also what’s with the phrase “lifted out of poverty?” The fuck does that mean? Why is this same phrase repeated anytime some criticizes capitalism? It’s like a stock phrase or talking point that makes you sound like a robot.
Industrialization happened because of capitalism.
Lol, no steam engines without stealing from the worker, got it. 🙄
I mean, around that time, I’m pretty sure steam engines were literally considered ‘stealing from the worker’.
The same with many other forms of mechanisation.
It’s not that the luddites were wrong, just that they were easily beaten, because humans can’t compete.
There are critics and cynics, but the same is happening now around AI.
There’s not a worker in the world who will vote away their own job.
Unchecked control of the workers for industry will harm us all. We don’t need socialism we need strong unions.
There’s not a worker in the world who will vote away their own job.
The fuck are you talking about? This happens all the time.
