Today's Internet sensations make much more money than both of us. Their skill is in their audacity, with which I am genuinely impressed. Juggling fire is audacious. Juggling seven clubs is like being able to program well in Arc: an interesting skill with little or no commercial value.
You would not get money from YC just because your app was written in Arc. You almost certainly wouldn't get money if your site looked as bad as HN (unless it was already a runaway success like Reddit was when YC invested in it :).
It's interesting to me that PG puts any time in Arc. It's a bit like juggling clubs in his driveway. PG is probably his most brilliant at being a hacker, but that skill doesn't have the same ROI as being a VC.
More power to PG and Gatto for finding ways to make money while doing something valuable for society. Long live YC and Big Top Concrete!
I was pushed into STEM hard at school, ‘cos I was fairly good at it! But I also suddenly gained an interest in music and pop culture and the analysis of it, which proceeded to occupy about 110% of my brain for much of my twenties. I struck out in tertiary education repeatedly attempting to get a STEMish qualification, and what actual paying work I got was music journalism (which to be honest I enjoyed even the tedious bits of), public servant or just plain office drone. I was a hot prospect for an underpaid overworked career as a paperpusher and/or bullshitter on the nonprofit/NGO circuit until I remembered I could work these computer things and got on the rather more lucrative career path.
Would I be happier as a severely insecure and underpaid humanities academic, writing probably much the same sort of stuff as I do now but more of it and showing more of my references? (the really good thing about music journalism is the freedom to be a primary source.) Well, I’d have a lot more fun with it. OTOH I eat vastly better on this path.
I even have a Soundcloud! https://soundcloud.com/diva-rose/ Though I am quite unlikely to become a pop star at 50.
You're unlikely to become a pop star at any age, and you won't fit into the typical teeny-bopper star at age 50, but.....for example, Seth McFarlane is doing rather well with his record sales, even though he's old and chubby and doesn't fit the 'typical' mold. Also, the Gorillaz. So it's something that can be done.
http://www.musicbusinessworldwide.com/biggest-british-debut-...
Look at who made the biggest-selling British debut album of 2016.
Is it? The article points out that juggling fire is no more dangerous than juggling pins. It only appears audacious to an ignorant audience.
Which is not said to denigrate Beats. By all means, play to your strengths. But it's certainly not an avenue obtainable by your average startup.
Beyond that, if you're talking a startup - especially an early startup - you probably aren't at the "I'm everywhere" stage yet.
We mostly self fund our companies. Easy and impressive, for us, tends to be a death knell. 6, maybe 12 months before someone bigger with more money comes into the market. Boring and easy is OK though, because people don't really pay much attention to boring.
The joke I tell people is that "Economics majors know enough about Economics, to know that they should be getting the hell OUT of Economics and INTO Tech. Thanks Economics! For telling me why my decisions were wrong, and that I should be doing something else!"
As a label founder myself [+], I'm not unfamiliar with where you're going but I'm curious on your perspective. Care to elaborate?
[+] you plug i plug: scalatapes.net
The situation now:
* before the Internet, you could read about a record - but hearing it required hard work, happenstance or money we didn’t have. It could take years between seeing the name of some potentially-interesting band or song and actually hearing them. (Rather than just going to YouTube, where someone has lovingly ripped their old vinyl copy.) A note on this experience: https://rocknerd.co.uk/2016/06/02/false-memories-of-feelings... So before, music press got the word out about music before the music itself could get there. But it's no longer necessary to that function, even as it can still be useful.
* With the rise of blogs, opinion is as readily available as the music itself. Approximately nobody is going to pay money for this shit. (This is a special case of the problem affecting journalism in general.) Only the biggest blogs and sites can sell the ads they need to. Per comment below, The NME is now an entertainment guide given away outside tube stations. The problem for professional music critics/press is that they're competing with literally everyone everywhere now, the same problem artists have: https://rocknerd.co.uk/2013/09/13/culture-is-not-about-aesth...
About the only press I can think of that's done at all well is the tech press, who ripped down those tedious walls between editorial and advertising and reluctance to live off payola around the turn of the millennium and turned into utter and unapologetic shills. And even then the competition is bloody vicious.
tl;dr the problem: you and I are in competition with literally everyone now.
I'm not entirely displeased at music journalism being stabbed through its putrid little heart; way too much about it was gatekeeping rather than enthusiasm. I do think everything is much better now for culture.
Oh, and cheers to a label on Bandcamp :-D Bandcamp is IMO THE BEST thing to happen to selling music on the net, like, ever.
Ditto for me.
The Economist gives some numbers: http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21663274-more-music-gi...
[+] still potter with it at https://rocknerd.co.uk for what that's worth, but art criticism in general is completely fucked in all directions. You think the internet did a number on the record labels ...