Some people have so much money they don't mind investing 10-100m here and there in the hope of making a 10x return. Greed and hype explains a lot of the juicero type of investments.
It says a lot when public services are deteriorating pretty much everywhere while investors blow hundred millions on fruit pressing machines and LLM wrappers
> How are UK citizens voting for deteriorating services?
- Voting Tory, you get cutting of public health services (e.g NHS) and and Brexit.
- Voting Reform, you get the same plus a healthy dose of xenophobia and nationalism (it's thinly veiled-fascism, really).
- Voting Labour, you get the same cuts but with a nice label of "progress", so you can feel good about yourself. All the while flat prices are skyrocketing and your doctor's appointment might not ever happen, but there is always money for militarizing police and for sending abroad some bombs to kill Palestinians.
If people did want improved public services, they should have voted for somebody like Jeremy Corbyn, who had the decency to distance himself from the absolute disgrace that Labour has become, or at least for the Greens/Socialists. But people did not, in fact, want improved public services, not really.
They preferred to either vote for the xenophobe thugs of Reform, the xenophobe elitist Tories, or the pretend-liberal oligarch/capital-loving "Labour", none of who have any incentives to improve public services. You get what you vote for.
Could that be because 99% of mass medias who make or break politicians are owned by a small elite of hardcore capitalists who have their own interests in mind?
Democracy isn't just about showing up every few years and putting a name in a ballot, it's a framework that requires a whole bunch of other things. A lot of EU countries and the US are getting closer and closer to oligarchies
I agree I mean what about all the teachers and the long term impact they have on society? A “little hundred mil” could go a long way.
But, that aside, since I’m just getting into the Lean Startup:
In chapter 12—startups typically need Scarce but Secure Resources:
“too much budget is as harmful as too little—as countless dot-com failures can attest—…”
I suppose this falls under case-and-point. They had too much money and blurring the lines between real customers and early adopters. This whole thing could have probably been figured out for a couple mil I’d imagine (though I’m no expert).
Do you have a plausible path to 10x+ing tens of millions in capital?
Ultimately the business of VC means that you're dealing with people how have a high risk tolerance but need the potential high payout to balance their risk.
If you have a sustainable, profitable, but small business that needs capital to expand, but likely won't grow significantly, you're better off talking to a family office or individual investors. I'd avoid banks if you can help it.
If you actually do think you have a plausible VC investment then it's a game of networking. Go through every person you know and look for someone who knows someone who can give you an introduction. If all else fails there's cold outreach but those can be difficult. You might need to bring on a partner who can handle that side of things if it's critical to your business.
Have a look at lot of founders on linkedin. You'll notice a lot go to the same small set of universities, or worked for same companies. Then there's the odd exception. But they're the exception.
Its silly to think talent is actually that concentrated.
I think everybody knows why some people can get investment to literally throw down the drain on insane moon shots, while others struggle to even survive. I'm sure lots of people have moonshot ideas that might work. Only a very small in group get investment.
Same as it ever was. The rich and well-connected hoard resources among members of their clique. Then they have the nerve to strut around talking about what visionary geniuses they are to achieve this level of “success”.
If you're already profitable, these types of investors will not be interested. They are looking for companies they can take public at massively inflated valuations based on growth projections totally removed from economic reality.
If your networking skills and levels of resourcefulness are such that you're asking random people on HN how to talk to investors, it's very unlikely that any of these investors will invest in you. So the answer is to invest heavily in improving at those two areas.
Perhaps they blew it all on "research" and GPU costs?
The current Gemini canvas implementation is pretty wild and can create you an app or website very very easily. Not as easy as ordering a pizza sure, but still even with just a few iterations you have something truly decent. Occasionally you luck out and the "one shot" is precisely what you want, but that typically requires an extensive prompt so you're beyond pizza range then.
Perhaps they were just too ahead of their time in that regard... But then if they'd waited then Google and OpenAi and Anthropic would have just eaten their lunch anyway (provided Claude was not too busy blackmailing you anyway!)
I mean it's kinda amazing, this was just in 2019 that this company was basically lying about being able to do this to get investment, yet now I can actually do it myself, right now, for free*. Incredible - where will we be in another 5 years?!!!
If you look at some youtube videos of Sachin Duggal over the last year he is draped in lvmh labels, the finest tailoring, super expensive turkey teeth, and doing news interviews from expensive Dubai suites. My guess is he will make those things his mainstay from now on. I notice a common theme in dodgy ceo's; they all do the carrying-an-invisible-ball thing with their hands when they are presenting.
What the hell happened? Unless it was an actual defrauding of investors, but how were the investors so stupid?