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Investing is gambling and people loving love to gamble
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Sep 16, 2016 02:27
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:Neither of those companies were ever "disruptive" in their startup phases though. Google made a pretty cool search algorithm, which caught on, then they were smart enough to stick an ad platform to it. Amazon sold books online, then realized that Sears wasn't good at the internet and expanded into a general store. These were pretty clear opportunities to dive into with reasonably predictable revenue. That's just it; they're cargo culting the success of companies that took a while to build. Really I think a lot of it ties up in people looking at Microsoft; some random college dropout nerd became the richest man in the world. That stock you should have bought when Microsoft was small would make you obscenely wealthy. Some people played it off as a fluke; then Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Steam, etc. happened. Investors are also running out of things to invest in which is a very serious problem. Even so most of the tech giants now just plain didn't exist 40 years ago. The "disruptive" part happens because investors just loving love a monopoly. At this point Google is the search engine. You don't search for things you google them now. People are looking at other industries and saying "can we do that there, too?" What they're failing to realize was that Google got to be Google by starting very small, playing the long game, and making things that were just so drat good. Plus like you are saying Google didn't say "we gonna be huge some day!" they just kind of kept putting in the hours and growing. Of course a lot of it was just "right place, right time;" when Google came around your choices of search engine were "lovely, bad, and terrible." There wasn't Google so there was opportunity for Google to come into existence. If Google hadn't done it somebody else would. Now you really can't make another search engine. Google's is just too good. This, of course, doesn't stop somebody who knows about investing but doesn't know about technology from assuming there's another Google waiting to happen and vomiting piles of money all over Silicon Valley.
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Sep 16, 2016 02:58
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Investors are also running out of things to invest in which is a very serious problem. It's a problem of which the tech sector is just one manifestation. The entire economy has been wrought into and engine to move wealth upwards, and now those at the top have so much money sloshing around that they're looking for anywhere to invest it. I mean what else are they going to do with it - improve living standards? Pay livable wages? Pshaw.
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Sep 16, 2016 04:16
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Platonicsolid posted:It's a problem of which the tech sector is just one manifestation. The entire economy has been wrought into and engine to move wealth upwards, and now those at the top have so much money sloshing around that they're looking for anywhere to invest it. I mean what else are they going to do with it - improve living standards? Pay livable wages? Pshaw.
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Sep 16, 2016 07:01
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Nessus posted:How did people rip off aristocrats in ancient times? That would seem to be the real growth sector. Then again, that's probably what's going on here. It's still being done. There have been several wine forgers making bank by literally putting new wine in old bottles with appropriate labels. Faking antiquities is also a two-thousand-year-old (at least) way of transferring money from the affluent to the clever.
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Sep 16, 2016 07:35
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Nessus posted:How did people rip off aristocrats in ancient times? That would seem to be the real growth sector. Then again, that's probably what's going on here. Become the next Rasputin?
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Sep 16, 2016 13:03
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Nessus posted:How did people rip off aristocrats in ancient times? That would seem to be the real growth sector. Then again, that's probably what's going on here. The Knights Templar spring to mind as a primary example and of course tangentially related to the Templars, the religious relic traders were known scammers of old.
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Sep 16, 2016 13:28
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Basically, any luxury item you *can* forge will *be* forged.
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Sep 16, 2016 15:41
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Also the term snake oil exists for a reason. You can sell absolutely nothing to people if you try hard enough.
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Sep 16, 2016 15:53
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Panfilo posted:Don't taxis typically charge a flat rate to go to/from certain areas? How are you going to get fleeced by paying cash in that situation? D.C. used to have a zone system where there was a flat rate that went up depending on how many zones you crossed over on your ride. This inevitable led to cab drivers going out of their way to cross as many zones as possible. Funny story, when they moved to metered fares they raised prices significantly to keep the cabbies happy. But since the meters kept cabbies from lying about their earnings on their taxes they still took a hard hit. Uber are assholes, but you can't deny they're successful partially because taxis are scummy as all hell.
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Sep 16, 2016 16:51
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Nessus posted:How did people rip off aristocrats in ancient times? That would seem to be the real growth sector. Then again, that's probably what's going on here. Taxes to fund the king's wars [cash or I'm form of levies raised) and tithing?
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Sep 16, 2016 19:18
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Arsenic Lupin posted:It's still being done. There have been several wine forgers making bank by literally putting new wine in old bottles with appropriate labels. Faking antiquities is also a two-thousand-year-old (at least) way of transferring money from the affluent to the clever. exactly the best thing you can say about the tech bubble is that it's transferring wealth downwards in great wet gobs
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Sep 16, 2016 19:56
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H.P. Hovercraft posted:exactly "downward" is a sort of dangerously non-specific term to use here. It's transferring wealth from privileged, older white males to privileged, younger white males. Remember that women and minorities are not invited to this party.
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Sep 16, 2016 21:02
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What're you talking about? Marissa Mayer got a ton of wealth.
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Sep 16, 2016 21:14
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ToxicSlurpee posted:Some people played it off as a fluke; then Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Steam, etc. happened. Investors are also running out of things to invest in which is a very serious problem. Even so most of the tech giants now just plain didn't exist 40 years ago. The "disruptive" part happens because investors just loving love a monopoly. At this point Google is the search engine. You don't search for things you google them now. People are looking at other industries and saying "can we do that there, too?" All of these companies happened because the big players couldn't get their technology poo poo together fast enough, or didn't think it was important, and upstarts ate their lunch. Thing is, I could name a bunch of industries that you could still "disrupt" in this way without your business model literally breaking the law. Real estate is still absurdly behind the times. Food and farming is begging for better tech infrastructure. The medical industry is a colossal shitshow but that isn't stopping genuinely useful products like ZocDoc moving into the sector. Why would you put money on a horse that's going to be chased down the track by cop cars if there are plenty of other sectors where you could play by the rules and still make a buck?
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Sep 16, 2016 21:20
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Unguided posted:What're you talking about? Marissa Mayer got a ton of wealth. a lady got rich, therefore it's safe to ignore all evidence that the tech boom is a white male hegemony
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Sep 16, 2016 21:21
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:All of these companies happened because the big players couldn't get their technology poo poo together fast enough, or didn't think it was important, and upstarts ate their lunch. Thing is, I could name a bunch of industries that you could still "disrupt" in this way without your business model literally breaking the law. Real estate is still absurdly behind the times. Food and farming is begging for better tech infrastructure. The medical industry is a colossal shitshow but that isn't stopping genuinely useful products like ZocDoc moving into the sector. Why would you put money on a horse that's going to be chased down the track by cop cars if there are plenty of other sectors where you could play by the rules and still make a buck? Yeah but that isn't fun and exciting and lord knows people love being at the center of it all. Heck the only reason why lovely fine art even exists is so rich people can buy it all up and then donate it to a museum so they can have a Wing named after them before they die.
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Sep 16, 2016 22:20
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:"downward" is a sort of dangerously non-specific term to use here. It's transferring wealth from privileged, older white males to privileged, younger white males. Remember that women and minorities are not invited to this party. it's draining from the ultrawealthy down to the merely affluent it's money coming out of outrageously large fortunes and going into people who are actually spending it of course this could be better in many many ways but it's certainly not a bad thing
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Sep 16, 2016 22:25
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Unguided posted:What're you talking about? Marissa Mayer got a ton of wealth. Didn't Forbes drop her net worth to zero? Many startup founders become paper millionaires, but turning that equity into cash can be difficult. VCs intentionally structure deals so the founder can't cash out too early, and there is a big conflict of interest there. Most 25 year old would be happy to sell their startup for a few million in the bank, while VC funds want to hold out for bigger returns.
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Sep 16, 2016 22:27
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Konstantin posted:Didn't Forbes drop her net worth to zero? Many startup founders become paper millionaires, but turning that equity into cash can be difficult. VCs intentionally structure deals so the founder can't cash out too early, and there is a big conflict of interest there. Most 25 year old would be happy to sell their startup for a few million in the bank, while VC funds want to hold out for bigger returns. no that's elizabeth holmes. holmes only has the one scam startup forbes says marissa mayer is worth $430m, because she's been a paid CEO for a while
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Sep 16, 2016 22:28
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:Real estate is still absurdly behind the times. Well they tried to modernize it with MERS because titles were just too old fashioned and clumsy. It was super shady, likely illegal, and lead to a huge wave of fraudulent foreclosures.
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Sep 16, 2016 23:18
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Popular Thug Drink posted:no that's elizabeth holmes. holmes only has the one scam startup Marissa Mayer was in very, very early at Google. She'll do just fine.
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Sep 16, 2016 23:35
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:All of these companies happened because the big players couldn't get their technology poo poo together fast enough, or didn't think it was important, and upstarts ate their lunch. Thing is, I could name a bunch of industries that you could still "disrupt" in this way without your business model literally breaking the law. Real estate is still absurdly behind the times. Food and farming is begging for better tech infrastructure. The medical industry is a colossal shitshow but that isn't stopping genuinely useful products like ZocDoc moving into the sector. Why would you put money on a horse that's going to be chased down the track by cop cars if there are plenty of other sectors where you could play by the rules and still make a buck? In theory five guys with laptops working out of a garage can create a billion dollar piece of software. Tech is also not nearly as regulated as stuff like food or medicine. Which is the other attraction; if you can make something "tech" instead of "*other thing*" you can try to skip out on regulations. Now that people are doing that on a big scale other people are starting to notice.
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Sep 16, 2016 23:59
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:All of these companies happened because the big players couldn't get their technology poo poo together fast enough, or didn't think it was important, and upstarts ate their lunch. Thing is, I could name a bunch of industries that you could still "disrupt" in this way without your business model literally breaking the law. Real estate is still absurdly behind the times. Food and farming is begging for better tech infrastructure. The medical industry is a colossal shitshow but that isn't stopping genuinely useful products like ZocDoc moving into the sector. Why would you put money on a horse that's going to be chased down the track by cop cars if there are plenty of other sectors where you could play by the rules and still make a buck? Because the larger goal of the people putting money into these companies is the collapse of effective governance by the people. No rich person who is backing Uber actually wants to have answer to the same laws as their Uber driver.
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Sep 17, 2016 00:22
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H.P. Hovercraft posted:it's draining from the ultrawealthy down to the merely affluent This isn't true completely. Many VC managers are rich, but the money itself that's invested comes from public and private pensions, foundations etc in large part.
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Sep 17, 2016 02:26
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Nessus posted:How did people rip off aristocrats in ancient times? That would seem to be the real growth sector. Then again, that's probably what's going on here. Convinced them they had to have a house in the country they used three months in the year and staffed with thirty full time workers anyway, mostly.
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Sep 17, 2016 03:11
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pr0zac posted:This isn't true completely. Many VC managers are rich, but the money itself that's invested comes from public and private pensions, foundations etc in large part. Yeah, investment banks have being doing their best to fool mutual funds into investing in risky startups at the later investment rounds. Uber is the most blatant example as they still won't release their financial statements to prospective investors.
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Sep 17, 2016 05:19
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Uber is hardly a startup.
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Sep 17, 2016 05:23
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 https://youtube.com/watch?v=l3KJpvR1-Zg
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Sep 17, 2016 06:56
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Subjunctive posted:Uber is hardly a startup. Eh, that's a question of definition. Their income statement hasn't been balanced for a single year of business, it's why they are so adamant about keeping their financial statements secret. In my opinion, that makes it a start-up.
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Sep 17, 2016 07:51
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Ok, Uber is a "startup."
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Sep 17, 2016 21:35
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MiddleOne posted:Eh, that's a question of definition. Their income statement hasn't been balanced for a single year of business, it's why they are so adamant about keeping their financial statements secret. In my opinion, that makes it a start-up. No, that makes it a private company.
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Sep 17, 2016 23:48
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Yeah it's a question of definition. It's a large multinational company 7ish years old, but also fresh of a funding round and hemorrhaging money and growing fast and 'disruptive' and a constant presence in articles/threads about startups. Nothing is gained by being too strident about it. I would say it isn't but it's not crazy to say it is.
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Sep 18, 2016 00:12
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It's a financially unsound private company. 
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Sep 18, 2016 01:17
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Apparently Uber is worth more than GM or Ford or Honda. Ok sure.
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Sep 18, 2016 01:43
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I associate startups with fairly new businesses. Uber, sure, was a startup, but if you've been going at it for 7 years and are worth billions, delivering a service that people pay for, that seems like a normal company. The fact that they try to circumvent regulations, and that they still don't turn a profit makes them a lovely dishonest company, but a company nonetheless. Of course, they still repeat the startup mantras.
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Sep 18, 2016 02:04
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namaste faggots posted:Apparently Uber is worth more than GM or Ford or Honda. Ok sure. Are they still worth more than all of the world's livery companies combined?
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Sep 18, 2016 02:20
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It's going to be interesting to see how condo strata councils react as Airbnb becomes more and more prevalent in the mainstream and Airbnb comes to the attention of more stratas. From my understanding there is no available condo insurance that covers short term rentals and strata corporations are not going to be pleased with the idea of having to potentially chase down an owner for payment if there's ever some incident that causes tens of thousands of dollars of damage that insurance won't cover. Accordingly all of the property management companies are recommending to their strata councils that they ban Airbnb. I could easily imagine that anti-short term rental bylaws will eventually be part of the initial bylaw set provided by the building developer. In many dense cities most new supply of housing is being created in the condo form. If these condos fairly successfully ban Airbnb where is the growth going to come from? Additionally there have been plenty of studies suggesting the massive majority of Airbnb revenue comes from professional commercial operators. This is a misuse of zoning and cities are going to be irked by this and for several other reasons. This category, the one that makes up the greatest amount of Airbnb revenue, is the one most at threat of heavy handed regulation by cities. Vancouver is going to reveal what they intend to do about Airbnb in the next several weeks. The city has sub 1% vacancy at the moment and Airbnb is perceived to be a contributing factor. I'm really curious to see what they'll do. As cities regulate and condo boards ban the service, Airbnb may carve out a niche as a super great vacation rental service for people that are able to rent out the extra rooms and basement suite of their big detached home. That'll be great, but I'm not sure that version of Airbnb will be able to scale to the amount that investors are hoping for.
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Sep 18, 2016 02:53
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Dr. Fishopolis posted:Neither of those companies were ever "disruptive" in their startup phases though. Google made a pretty cool search algorithm, which caught on, then they were smart enough to stick an ad platform to it. Amazon sold books online, then realized that Sears wasn't good at the internet and expanded into a general store. These were pretty clear opportunities to dive into with reasonably predictable revenue. Google disrupted how the internet worked Before google, it was literally AOL keywords or you type web addresses manually. Also they did not have a very good business revenue until Schmidt went full-on ads
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Sep 18, 2016 06:56
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MeruFM posted:Google disrupted how the internet worked Not really. There were a fair number of search engines that sorta kinda did what google did, just very poorly.
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Sep 18, 2016 07:07
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