America has a monopoly problem

Re:America has a monopoly problem by jasode on Tuesday October 24, 2017 @12:15PM (#15542736)

Yes, investors care about the goals of the business. See the promises of Theranos' "40 tests and detect cancer from a single drop of blood". I can't think of a VC that has the investment thesis of "put money into businesses that has cutthroat competition and drive others out of business".

Theranos had promises of "blue ocean". No competition. This attracted investors like moths to a flame. (We now know they had no competitors because their technology was a fraud.) The investors would have been better off investing in a boring factory making generic aspirin ("red oceans of bloody competition").

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:America has a monopoly problem by emodendroket on Tuesday October 24, 2017 @12:29PM (#15542847)

I'd argue that's basically what Uber is trying to do.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:America has a monopoly problem by jasode on Tuesday October 24, 2017 @12:41PM (#15542931)

Fyi... Peter Thiel thinks Uber is overvalued. He didn't like the way they compete.

Uber should be a case study that burning up billions in investor money (billions wasted on trying to underprice Didi in China) was a colossal mistake. How much of that bad strategy is blamed on Travis's vs investors is something we won't know until a tell-all book comes out.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:America has a monopoly problem by emodendroket on Tuesday October 24, 2017 @03:35PM (#15544541)

I think they're likely overvalued too, but it seems to be an obvious counterexample of the claims about investor behavior regardless.

[ Parent | on HN ]