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Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by te_chris on Thursday December 21, 2023 @06:51AM (#38719340)
The mediocre VC glut is almost worse than - and extremely symbiotic with - the mediocre startup glut. Good riddance to both.
Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by billy99k on Thursday December 21, 2023 @07:13AM (#38719465)
You can say 'good riddance', but this just means when you get laid off, it will be harder to find a job, because the only companies around are the large/established tech companies.
Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by fidotron on Thursday December 21, 2023 @07:22AM (#38719544)
The glut of bad companies has successfully converted the SV startup scene into a market of lemons: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by te_chris on Thursday December 21, 2023 @07:38AM (#38719698)
It doesn't mean that, it does mean there might be less time-wasting, over-funded startups wasting talent though.
Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by colesantiago on Thursday December 21, 2023 @07:18AM (#38719513)
And the fault lies with the VCs and the startups they have backed with no path to being a business that generates revenue or even becomes profitable.

Instead, today's startups lives off fundraise to fundraise and when the party stops, they inevitably shutdown.

Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by teitoklien on Thursday December 21, 2023 @07:26AM (#38719585)
That is fine, and it’s called risk taking from private capital towards an economy

Which funds jobs in each market and drives innovation.

It’s called having a positive outlook towards an economy, you don’t want that capital to stay in banks owned by top 1% cuz that’s where it’ll stay if you don’t make an environment where they’ll use it to fund more jobs for the masses and gamble it away for a chance at something greater

It’s why having deflation or 0 inflation in an economy is bad, because they want people to invest back and take risks in an economy ?

So why celebrate a pause, unless you want the country to go down into flames. This isnt money where the government will bailout these VCs, this is them taking risks, creating jobs, spurring innovation, knowing fully well they might lose it all.

Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by kaoD on Thursday December 21, 2023 @07:41AM (#38719728)
That's a very nice way to put it, but in reality this turned out to be money not spent wisely and instead distorting the market. This often does not lead to innovation, see e.g. the absolutely zero innovation that we got from the cryptocurrency craze. It could even stifle innovation by distorting the market in weird ways, driving away the money from productive (but less speculative) endeavors.

> It’s why having deflation or 0 inflation in an economy is bad, because they want people to invest back and take risks in an economy ?

You can also tax the shit out of large capital in a non-linear fashion which, unlike inflation, will not hit the small savers.

This will still encourage that capital to not stay in banks, while helping small savers to build capital (which is the only way to really drive out the oligopoly) instead of riding the funding wave and hoping for an exit out of a business built on burning money which will only make the corporate conglomerates even bigger when they acquire you (which is your only incentive as a business-owner, to strive for an exit, since otherwise you'll just be hemorrhaging money from your "business").

Note I don't think this is the way to go, I just think the common narrative (which I saw implicitly in your comment, forgive me if I'm wrong) is just a rose-tinted glance at our current situation in post-capitalism.

Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by teitoklien on Thursday December 21, 2023 @08:35AM (#38720199)
You’re right I missed some important stuff, came across this a bit later, a couple of minutes ago:

[Destruction of America’s middle class](https://seekingalpha.com/article/4346450-federal-reserve-and...)

> The crypto currency craze while definitely was a horrible phase, it did end up giving america a lot of advantages, it incurred a ton of demand for american GPU tech which helped it advance faster and have more cash reserves to take risks, this allowed usa to get a headstart to AI which if it uses well, will usher in a new era of innovation for you guys. You might argue that we could just spent 1/20th the amount in gpu market and gotten the same result, but truth is prolly wouldn’t have happened that way.

> You can also tax the shit out of large capital in a non-linear fashion which, unlike inflation, will not hit the small savers.

This will never happen, it’ll cause all of the money to flee out of america overnight, it’s the reason why usa and europe is desperately trying to increase the minimum corporate tax rate globally. In a post globalised world, it’s no longer as simple as just pulling a lever.

> which is the only way to really drive out the oligopoly

The way to drive oligopoly out is by breaking up oligopolies and bringing competition into the market, usa has done this several times, standard oil, AT&T, etc.

You cant shove people’s wallet out into the ocean, and tell them they either spend it or lose it, they’ll panic, they’ll scream for safety, if they cant keep the money in bank, where will they invest ? The most safest and established businesses, ala those oligopolies.

You cant force them to spend and then expect them to start gambling left and right, they’ll instead just want to find safer shores.

The only reliable way to breaking up monopolies is to break up monopolies.

> just a rose-tinted glance at our current situation in post-capitalism.

You’re right, after reading a few more responses i realised i made the comment a bit too hastily and impulsively not seeing through what everything i said actually meant.

But I also don’t think, it’s that “wrong” even the most greedy want to invest in the sane things, if people invested in so many unsustainable businesses, it means there weren’t enough sustainable options to put in that money in the first place.

If USA had not created that 0% interest rate environment, it wouldn’t have been able to take any advantage of the petro dollar benefits.

Initially USA had expected the middle east to invest all their earnings into america, that they got paid with usd for oil, instead most of the money went to asia. That was just the first sign of trouble in usa.

That along with stupid government policies around offshoring so much production to a communist country like China didnt help either.

So yes, i agree with you, it was a bad move, but it wasn’t VCs that created america’s impending ruin, its government policy.

Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by AndrewKemendo on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:16AM (#38721436)
Who do you think writes government policy?

The entire US government is captured by corporate interests and has been for decades. [0]

Voters have effectively no say over who runs for congress or president, as those are controlled by party leaders who are - you guessed it - sponsored by "interest groups." Even at the local level, corporate governors are focused on district chairs (like Anne Wheeler in PW County, VA) to push through all manner of things like rezoning, tax credits etc... for "development."

We're dealing with exactly this right now with Amazon pushing data centers into our farmland and depleting our Aquifer. [1]

[0]https://publicintegrity.org/politics/state-politics/copy-pas...

[1]https://protectpwc.org/

Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by teitoklien on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:24AM (#38721560)
Politicians write government policies, corruption and a distracted public causes them to write bad policies

People will always try to corrupt a powerful force like government.

You can cry, shoot VC, destroy them, jail them, whatever, there will always be this VC class

Politicians should be held accountable, they got the vote, they got the protection (police, bodyguards, secret service)

If they betray people for money, then that means they write bad policians.

In CCP, there are a ton more corrupt businessmen who’d love to write their gov’s policy in everything. Yet CCP successfully controls them, breaks them up, write pro consumer policy.

And heck they are run by a dictator !

American politicians have no excuse to write bad policies, its those politicians who should be held accountable, VCs will always try to corrupt politicians, if not them, than foreign governments will happily pay up and take that spot.

It’s not an excuse If a corrupt gov makes bad policies

Then that’s it. It. Makes. Bad. Policies.

Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by AndrewKemendo on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:30AM (#38721666)
The US is an "anarcho-capitalist" wasteland of domination that takes great amazing powerful innovations from talented people and uses them to oppress the least powerful underclasses.

Always has always been

I'm unaware of an example where this is not true. Every single major "innovation" came at the cost of some indigenous person's property or is exploiting a worker who is in crisis. In fact when US producers run out of people to exploit in the US, corporations pushed politicians to pass "treaties" such as NAFTA etc... to expand the pool of exploitable labor while ensuring the previous workers cannot compete.

Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by teitoklien on Thursday December 21, 2023 @10:50AM (#38721996)
NAFTA is a good thing for usa, it’s one of the major reasons why usa still exports what it can export.

USA spends 6x more money on every american in healthcare, spends more on weapons than next 5 militaries combined, spends way more than any other country on education per child.

No USA isn’t an anarcho capitalist societ, it is just a WILDLY inefficient country hijacked by utopian bullshit people who think money grows on trees, finances bad policies, then facepalm and hide their incompetence, cuz typically people with utopian ideas are terribly bad at reaching that utopia.

This isn’t the 50s or 60s, governments have done a lot to improve the lives of average americans, its just the latest versions of it, are incompetent and the public is to forgiving to them.

Too many politicians who lack drive, intellect and sheer will. When you have presidents and senators older than the average life expectancy of a lot of middle income countries.

This is what happens. Usa isnt some evil doomed country run by anarchists, it’s a country that has saved itself from many threats before, and rediscovered itself many times and pushed through. It needs to fix itself again, NAFTA is not the problem, it’s what’s keeping the americas still “barely” competitive and giving a chance to reshoring manufacturers

Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by AndrewKemendo on Thursday December 21, 2023 @11:17AM (#38722433)
"NAFTA is a good thing for usa"

Nope: https://www.epi.org/blog/naftas-impact-workers/

"USA spends 6x more money on every american in healthcare"

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/31/health/us-health-care-spendin...

It's tough for me to not look at your claims as not malicious given how thoroughly and completely they have been debunked by the record. The fact taht you use spending as some kind of proxy for good says your foundational conception of what society is for is flawed.

So I'm not sure what else there is to say.

Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by teitoklien on Thursday December 21, 2023 @11:48AM (#38722920)
You missed this part that i mentioned right after the spending metrics

> it is just a WILDLY inefficient country

It has worse outcomes because it wastes a lot, that’s what I was saying.

> It's tough for me to not look at your claims as not malicious

You are too quick to think, everyone on this planet is out to get you or has “malicious” and “evil” intentions.

> "NAFTA is a good thing for usa" Nope: https://www.epi.org/blog/naftas-impact-workers/

You’re missing the long term idea around NAFTA, it’s to make America competitive again and curb its reliance on other continents like europe or asia.

They want to reshore manufacturing to usa and its neighbours. This is necessary.

The way you just shut it up and say “nope” that it removes short term bargaining power for american workers.

It’s like talking about the industrial revolution or the agricultural revolution which brought efficiencies and made those countries more productive.

Back then they argued that it was removing bargaining power of people working at farms, that it was taking away jobs like being a tailor at a sweatshop working your way to death.

Standard of living of americans are much better now, NAFTA long term is planned to be like that, it may fail, but bets are on to make it succeed.

I’d recommend talking to a therapist, all this anarcho capitalism, a random HN commenter being somehow “malicious” and this “evil agenda” to change people’s opinions on HN, idk this is too much drama. Just have a civil conversation, we are humans, not demons or angels.

Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by AndrewKemendo on Thursday December 21, 2023 @11:56AM (#38723055)
Evil is when good men stand by and do nothing or worse benefit from broken system

I suggest reading Diogenes

I have a great therapist already though ;)

Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by poisonborz on Thursday December 21, 2023 @02:14PM (#38725274)
And megacorps surely haven't taken extreme measures to avoid those taxes, also lobbying the crap out of officials who avoid enforcing them in the first place to not lose cool points in ""the global tech race"". Weirdly the good example here is Russia and China where the state did not refrain from extreme measures to show the market whales their place.
Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by te_chris on Friday December 22, 2023 @04:11AM (#38732399)
China, maybe. But mafia state Russia??? Come on.
Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by te_chris on Thursday December 21, 2023 @07:42AM (#38719739)
I think you're confusing the last few years for productive innovation. It wasn't. A whole bunch of valuable capital got pissed away because LPs were desperate for any gains they could get. The world is different now, gains have to be earned. Thankfully there's more than enough opportunities rather than over-funded SaaS startups providing services to other over funded SaaS startups. And that's before we even get to crypto.

Hell, I'm not even bitter, good on you all who got the grift! It was absolutely a grift, though.

Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by izacus on Thursday December 21, 2023 @07:58AM (#38719865)
Isn't that also visible downstream with Chinese companies enroaching into US markets to the point where bans need to be instated to protect stagnating US companies?

Just a decade back it would be unthinkable to have Chinese companies compete on anything besides cheapness against US tech.

Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by teitoklien on Thursday December 21, 2023 @08:13AM (#38720005)
That is more due to the Chinese government much more strategically investing in their economy with long term planning, instead of this polarized ping pong game between republicans and democrats

- Also, chinese companies get advantage from their currency not being the global currency, while usd being the global currency allows usa to spur up almost infinite debt and loans without any penalties, or severe inflation, it forces the federal reserves in keeping usd a stable reserve store.

This makes american exports significantly uncompetitive, while china can make its exports cheaper. Not to mention fewer regulations, negligible IP enforcement, obscene strategic IP theft from american companies at the nation state level, have all helped china reach this stage.

This wasn’t caused by VC , but rather American politicians sleeping and fighting amongst themselves when they were awake, while china ate your lunch.

Re:Many VCs have stopped investing this year by te_chris on Thursday December 21, 2023 @09:08AM (#38720537)
Partially, but China is also struggling and needs to export to offset the shitshow in the property market and slumping demand.