Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy

Re:Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy by loganfrederick on Friday September 27, 2019 @06:00PM (#21096651)

I get that, but there are biotechs that can get funded on an order of magnitude of tens or hundreds of millions. If the Vision Fund with $100 billion can't make biotech investments work, who could? That's kind of my point; if Vision Fund at scale can't make risky investments work, who could? The only alternatives are the existing profit-machines like Google (Google X) or governments.

I am also not the only one with this thought; Professor Andrew Lo of MIT has a final chapter in his book "Adaptive Markets" about how he might structure a similar "big problem solving fund" akin to the Vision Fund but with arguably bolder ambitions.

https://www.amazon.com/Adaptive-Markets-Financial-Evolution-...

https://publicpolicy.wharton.upenn.edu/live/news/2784-can-fi...

And before someone argues that "they're likelier to lose a lot of money trying riskier investments", they just seemingly lost a lot of money on the "easier" investments. So if you're going to lose money, I'd rather it be on trying to solve hard problems than paying Adam Neumann.

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Re:Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy by dang on Sunday September 29, 2019 @03:36AM (#21105692)

If you continue to break the site guidelines, we're going to have to ban you. We've asked you about this multiple times already. Swipes like "LMAO", "you clearly have no understanding", "you are missing the point", "do you know anything", "you are completely ignorant", and so on are not ok here, regardless of how much you know.

I appreciate your informative comments to HN, but we need you to stop posting like this. It damages the community, which is fragile. Would you please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and fix this going forward?

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Re:Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy by caseysoftware on Friday September 27, 2019 @08:53PM (#21097622)

I have a good friend who is a cancer researcher and they're 5 years in and think they might be able to commercialize something in another 3. Realistically, they're assuming it will be closer to five.

While I have massive respect for the people with the insight, patience, and understanding to tackle biotech, I can't imagine spending 8-10 years for the hope that maybe you've done something useful.. and then figure out if you can sell it.

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Re:Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy by codesushi42 on Friday September 27, 2019 @09:00PM (#21097661)

Exactly this. OP doesn't seem to get it. It takes a long time and "launching" is never certain. Thank you sir.

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Re:Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy by bontaq on Friday September 27, 2019 @09:55PM (#21097867)

I don't think your point makes sense. Obviously venture capital exists for biotech. Since the vision fund lost a bunch of money on safer bets, it would've been better if they lost it on risky biotech bets.

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Re:Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy by codesushi42 on Friday September 27, 2019 @10:02PM (#21097896)

Huh? I guess if they had a crystal ball.

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Re:Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy by perl4ever on Friday September 27, 2019 @07:24PM (#21097157)

"This is why phony genomics software platforms are all the rage today."

Examples?

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Re:Dog-walking startup Wag raised $300M, then things got messy by codesushi42 on Friday September 27, 2019 @07:57PM (#21097342)

Plenty of sequencing software start ups, platforms, etc that are doomed to fail in this over saturated space.

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