The very fact that the words "dipshit $40m companies" were ever uttered with a straight face suggests to me that we all completely lost our fucking minds.
A $40m company is an amazing achievement for anyone and I can't imagine the level of neurosis and inferiority that would make you consider that a "dipshit" accomplishment. Building a billion-dollar company is a once in a generation thing in any industry, none of us should forget that.
People talk about "riding a wave" as if it's about being in the right place at the right time. Ask a surfer and you'll get the truth - riding a big wave is about getting up really early and paddling like a motherfucker all day into wave after wave, until eventually you get a big one. If you just sit there waiting for a big wave to come, you're just going to get drowned by it.
The whole economy has been a great big childish bubble for the last decade or more. It has burst, which is great. Credit is cheap, rents are cheap, labour is cheap, the incumbents are panicked and markets are restructuring. Pick a wave and paddle for it - by the time you can see that it's a big one, you'll have missed it.
In the real world, $40 million dollars would typically mean at most a 5x profit valuation, meaning 8 million in profit, and probably $80-$100 million in revenue, and hundreds of employees.
In the valley and California, $40 million often means a talent acquisition with interesting technology, and smart people, but no idea how to monetize it or create a sustainable business.
Is $40m valuation company different than a $40 company ten years ago? Given inflation, I think it would have to be.
The argument has been going around that $1m is no longer "F-you money" anymore, that is, it's not enough to make a person set for life. $1m dollars good for either 15 years of a middle class life style or money for investment and work hard to keep making money for you.
I think that makes cashing out at $40m different than ten years ago, though I'm far away enough from that I couldn't say exactly how different. Of course, it also depends on how many people cash out.
-- Your "riding a wave" comment is awesome though...
Lacey may be mistaking her circumstances -- at TC -- and those of her main subjects -- like Rose -- for a general weariness.
There's no shortage of twentysomethings, far from tired, with the added advantage of being able to take for granted everything prior companies exhausted themselves proving out.
I suppose I don't like the 'wave' analogy here, because it implies there's a general lull in "Web" right now -- a pause between waves, or low tide, or some such cyclical slowdown.
In fact, despite troubles in the general economy, there's no such slowdown. The Web sector is booming -- and focusing on a few 'weary' companies and people of a certain generation isn't a general sectoral indicator, at all.
The wave is still going right now with plenty of energy, and reporting to the contrary is a disservice.
But will those hungry twentysomethings remain hungry, to push a successful, growing business past a "dipshit offer" and move it further into a world class tech/brand power category? Or will a handful of tech giants stand by the door and grab every calf firm with a promising future?
There will be a mixture of outcomes. And some of the early-exits and fizzles will in fact set the ground for future mega-successes. Sean Parker's near-misses in Napster and Plaxo helped him help Facebook avoid early exits. @Ev's sale of Blogger to Google enabled Twitter.
A humane piece of lamenting prose that managed to make feel sympathetic toward Kevin Rose and Michael Arrington. A first. Read it for the 5th paragraph, and the last.
I think this is where hacker-built businesses have a unique opportunity. They're well versed with the development grind. Though the media company grind is very different, mainly through the necessary inclusion of many more people involved, hackers know how to overcome a bug and solve problems. Since the problem is on their end (the grind) as opposed to external forces (a bubble) these businesses have more of a fighting chance then the dot com companies that dried up quickly and painfully.
Hacker-built businesses still have the grind of acquiring customers, getting traction, growing revenue, etc. All businesses are subject to external forces.
It goes without saying that all business endeavors will have problems being for-profit institutions. What I meant with the post before was that given the normal wear of growing a business and doing the same while including the web1.0 bubble, I'll take the costs of doing business alone without the macroeconomic cloud.
"... and with the right kind of eyes, you an almost see the high water mark. That place where the wave finally broke and rolled back." -- Hunter S. Thompson
A $40m company is an amazing achievement for anyone and I can't imagine the level of neurosis and inferiority that would make you consider that a "dipshit" accomplishment. Building a billion-dollar company is a once in a generation thing in any industry, none of us should forget that.
People talk about "riding a wave" as if it's about being in the right place at the right time. Ask a surfer and you'll get the truth - riding a big wave is about getting up really early and paddling like a motherfucker all day into wave after wave, until eventually you get a big one. If you just sit there waiting for a big wave to come, you're just going to get drowned by it.
The whole economy has been a great big childish bubble for the last decade or more. It has burst, which is great. Credit is cheap, rents are cheap, labour is cheap, the incumbents are panicked and markets are restructuring. Pick a wave and paddle for it - by the time you can see that it's a big one, you'll have missed it.