Does it occur to anyone that the reason why the fictional billionaire is more interested in valuation than ongoing revenue streams is the difference tax rates between capital gains vs. operating profits?
2
I think anonymity has a role in society but probably not the way the founders of Secret intended. I was at Stanford from 1997-2000 and I saw the height of excess and if your goal in life is to make money, you'd wade into it. Raising money is the easy part: doing the work which you said you'd do to raise the money I think is the hard part.
3
So why do we cringe at the notion of some good old fashioned regulation?
2
The Secret app is one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard of. I'm astonished the company lasted 16 months. There must be so much money available to be invested that investors are desperate to find something... anything... to invest in.
1
I'm generally for college education, but these people make me feel too many college degrees are being handed out.
Is this the first time in internet history that someone has returned money not used to investors?
Great slogan, though: "strong enough for a woman."
Oh, wait.
Oh, wait.
Gee, I've got an app and I am debating whether to call it "anti-secret" (lower case) or just "Gossip". The idea is to enable people to vote for the most deserving candidates for "corporate Darwin awards" - in categories such as company/industry, product, executive, engineering project(s), etc. Of course, there would be some anonymity with revealing details stripped out. Posters could cast their votes, pitching up or down rankings, and maybe even bet on finalists. Any takers?
Back during the dot com boom in 1999 and 2000, I was brought to California by a PR firm who wanted me to work with "young companies with potential."
I worked for about 15 companies. Only one survives (and is very successful) today. I turned down a company because they had money but no product and no ideas. They had raised $15 million (yes, that's a real number). The company was two recent Stanford grads - who wanted to build websites for other companies. The only problem was they had no idea how to do it.
It was a crazy time back then. Companies like Secret serve as a valuable reminder that not all the wackiness is gone.
I worked for about 15 companies. Only one survives (and is very successful) today. I turned down a company because they had money but no product and no ideas. They had raised $15 million (yes, that's a real number). The company was two recent Stanford grads - who wanted to build websites for other companies. The only problem was they had no idea how to do it.
It was a crazy time back then. Companies like Secret serve as a valuable reminder that not all the wackiness is gone.
3
I've been in Silicon Valley for close to 30 years, and in many ways this is an old story. What I learned fairly quickly is that the venture community's product on offer is a story they can sell, often to a naive public market. In one company I founded, the (top tier) venture investors wanted to make this my personal story of struggling in a garage against all odds, prevailing against a strong headwind of naysays. This posed two problems: it wasn't true, and I value my privacy. I walked away and watched the company grow through worthless acquisitions--window dressing at best, more characters in the story--until it was crushed under its own weight.
Since then I've grown companies the old fashioned way: by making a product people want to buy. I don't take equity investments from the venture community. Sure, I've never had a billion dollar exit, but I'll gladly settle for a $100M acquisition based on real value.
What outsiders don't understand about many venture capitalists is that they are looking for just a few of their portfolio companies to have billion dollar exits. If they are successful, it doesn't much matter what happens to the rest of their companies. They're betting double-zero in roulette, whereas as a founder I am just trying to play my hand in a game of poker. Very different challenges.
Since then I've grown companies the old fashioned way: by making a product people want to buy. I don't take equity investments from the venture community. Sure, I've never had a billion dollar exit, but I'll gladly settle for a $100M acquisition based on real value.
What outsiders don't understand about many venture capitalists is that they are looking for just a few of their portfolio companies to have billion dollar exits. If they are successful, it doesn't much matter what happens to the rest of their companies. They're betting double-zero in roulette, whereas as a founder I am just trying to play my hand in a game of poker. Very different challenges.
19
You probably mean "software defined" data centers, not "software defying". Even though it's fictional, one seeks verisimilitude.
2
The founders were taken aback at the amount of abuse and negativity that found it's way on to their anonymous app? Are you frigging kidding me? Have they been living under a rock the past 15 years? Anonymous unmoderated sites are just about the most creepy, abusive obnoxious places on earth. How can one go into such a business not fully realizing it beforehand?
13
Perhaps they did know and thought it might generate income. The bottom line seems to be the only concern in so many of these "disruptive " apps.
GIGO--garbage in, garbage out says it better.
8
How could they be so naive in this day and time?
3
Naive? Nah. There's money in the Zeitgeist just like there's free energy in the vacuum. Cosmologists say so (not exactly, but who needs "exactly")
I'm amazed how annoyed I am by this story. Fool me once, shame on you; fool me millions of times, shame on... And when these ventures do work out, and the founders hit a home run, we collectively suspend disbelief and pretend like their grit, intelligence and hard work are the only thing at play. And if you dare say people like Peter Thiel are not totally incredible - who is going to cure death mind you - you are a heretic because his future success as a multi-multi-millionaire are proof of his incredible business acumen. Masters of the universe indeed.
7
Judge is very talented, usually right on the mark with his social commentary. I have not seen "Silicon Valley", but will look for it. One of my favorite Judge creations is the movie "Office Space". The coffee sipping manager who says, "yeah...yeah..that would be great," hilariously captures the frustrations of working under an obnoxious boss.
6
Not that Secret or the investing culture in Silicon Valley that propped up Secret don't deserve ridicule, but I think there are parts of the US much more worthy of scrutiny than the one place we're growing and creating value.
Tech is a fantastic equalizer across race and class; you can get a 6 figure job with no college degree and skills you can gain in a library, on the internet, for free.
And it's one thing that we are doing as a country unequivocally better than the rest of the world. The EU is suing Google and winning partially because they are threatened by having exactly 0% of the international tech sector in Europe.
I think we can and should encourage more forward thinking investments in areas like education and healthcare where the returns aren't as immediate and the barrier to entry is higher, but the U.S. remaining at the forefront of innovation in technology is the absolute best thing we can do for our country.
Tech is a fantastic equalizer across race and class; you can get a 6 figure job with no college degree and skills you can gain in a library, on the internet, for free.
And it's one thing that we are doing as a country unequivocally better than the rest of the world. The EU is suing Google and winning partially because they are threatened by having exactly 0% of the international tech sector in Europe.
I think we can and should encourage more forward thinking investments in areas like education and healthcare where the returns aren't as immediate and the barrier to entry is higher, but the U.S. remaining at the forefront of innovation in technology is the absolute best thing we can do for our country.
6
@Adam Cue
I would never denigrate the ingenuity and real wealth creation that have characterized Silicon Valley since the early days of HP, Intel, Apple, and dozens of other great companies. This remarkable path continues with visionaries like Elon Musk, creator/philanthropists like Mark Benioff.
But one can't believe this is "the one place we're growing and creating value" when so much current activity what Judge's satire mocks. I live in San Francisco's SOMA, a neighborhood of start-ups and entrepreneurs who look exactly like the characters in "Silicon Valley". It feels like Oklahoma in the 30's, every scruffy character hoping for a "gusher" in the form of an app probably no less foolish than Secret. These guys are not seeking to improve the world -- only hoping to get rich. Those who want to make the world a better place labor in the labs and hospitals and classrooms at Stanford and UC.
"Tech is a fantastic equalizer across race and class; you can get a 6 figure job with no college degree and skills you can gain in a library, on the internet, for free. "
Yes, but walk around SOMA (Silicon Valley is the same) and see a distorted image of the American workforce, which is 47% female, 16% Hispanic, 12% black and 12% Asian, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Almost no women or blacks.
And the newly-minted barely out of college Twitter millionaires who haven't yet learned to pick up after themselves? Their parents move them into their flashy new condos.
I would never denigrate the ingenuity and real wealth creation that have characterized Silicon Valley since the early days of HP, Intel, Apple, and dozens of other great companies. This remarkable path continues with visionaries like Elon Musk, creator/philanthropists like Mark Benioff.
But one can't believe this is "the one place we're growing and creating value" when so much current activity what Judge's satire mocks. I live in San Francisco's SOMA, a neighborhood of start-ups and entrepreneurs who look exactly like the characters in "Silicon Valley". It feels like Oklahoma in the 30's, every scruffy character hoping for a "gusher" in the form of an app probably no less foolish than Secret. These guys are not seeking to improve the world -- only hoping to get rich. Those who want to make the world a better place labor in the labs and hospitals and classrooms at Stanford and UC.
"Tech is a fantastic equalizer across race and class; you can get a 6 figure job with no college degree and skills you can gain in a library, on the internet, for free. "
Yes, but walk around SOMA (Silicon Valley is the same) and see a distorted image of the American workforce, which is 47% female, 16% Hispanic, 12% black and 12% Asian, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Almost no women or blacks.
And the newly-minted barely out of college Twitter millionaires who haven't yet learned to pick up after themselves? Their parents move them into their flashy new condos.
1
"0% of the international tech sector in Europe". I love it. Until very very recently, for probably 6 billion of the world's 7 billion people, the single most important tech product in their lives was the robust, cheap, and useful Nokia feature phone, designed and engineered in Finland. Even today, after the Chinese (also conspicuously not American) smartphone revolution, that is still true for probably 3 or 4 billion people.
The Silicon Valley you are talking about has a very very long way to go before it creates anything approaching real societal value for the vast majority of the world that exists outside your self-satisfied bubble.
The Silicon Valley you are talking about has a very very long way to go before it creates anything approaching real societal value for the vast majority of the world that exists outside your self-satisfied bubble.
1
"I think there are parts of the US much more worthy of scrutiny than the one place we're growing and creating value. "
This is an amazingly good example of exactly the sort of attitude that DOES deserve ridicule. A second amazingly good example, in light of the publicly available demographic data for valley tech companies would be:
"Tech is a fantastic equalizer across race and class; you can get a 6 figure job with no college degree and skills you can gain in a library, on the internet, for free. "
Clearly, the term bubble doesn't just refer to finances when applied to the valley.
This is an amazingly good example of exactly the sort of attitude that DOES deserve ridicule. A second amazingly good example, in light of the publicly available demographic data for valley tech companies would be:
"Tech is a fantastic equalizer across race and class; you can get a 6 figure job with no college degree and skills you can gain in a library, on the internet, for free. "
Clearly, the term bubble doesn't just refer to finances when applied to the valley.
1
There is more investment money sloshing around than we know what to do with. So we blow bubbles with it, and those who are best at prospering in a bubble environment do very well. The investment money makes some very rich and also supports our old people, foundations, universities, and other nonprofit enterprises. Many people thus have a vested interest in making sure that investments continue to make money.
The surplus of investment money looking for someplace to grow means that every part of the economy becomes oriented towards being a good investment. Schools, jails, drugs, and weapons become places to invest and their original purpose and function is eased out and forgotten.
Silicon Valley becomes controlled by the investors rather than the developers and inventors. A social media idea becomes an object of speculation and its form and development is structured by the necessity to appeal to speculators.
We need to tax until the amount of investment money corresponds to our real needs. This will bring the economy back to sanity.
The surplus of investment money looking for someplace to grow means that every part of the economy becomes oriented towards being a good investment. Schools, jails, drugs, and weapons become places to invest and their original purpose and function is eased out and forgotten.
Silicon Valley becomes controlled by the investors rather than the developers and inventors. A social media idea becomes an object of speculation and its form and development is structured by the necessity to appeal to speculators.
We need to tax until the amount of investment money corresponds to our real needs. This will bring the economy back to sanity.
10
The ease with which start-ups are able to raise investor capital based on very nebulous paths to profit would suggest that maybe the 1% have too much money chasing too few investment opportunities. There might be more opportunity for investment if the remaining 99% had more money to spend...
18
The most prominent example of this kind of thinking is, of course, Amazon which has done all sorts of things except bother to make any money. I don't understand why Jeff Bezos is treated like some sort of disruptive genius. His playbook is as old as capitalism: undercut your competitors' prices by working your (non-unionized) employees to the bone and paying them little money. The only way he gets away with it is because Wall Street continues to send him tons and tons of capital. One presumes that's because they figure that one day he will have driven enough local establishments out of business that he can can begin to raise prices and then turn a profit. Didn't such practices once get the Robber Barons in trouble and anti-trust laws passed? But that was in a galaxy long ago and far away ...
35
$60B in revenue and $7B in free cash flow. Almost 100,000 employees. And Wall Street hasn't invested a penny since 1997. But let's not let facts get in the way...
10
Wall Street hasn't invested a penny? How about $6 billion 2014 and 3 billion in 2012? Amazon Sells $6 Billion in Biggest Bond Deal for Online Retailer http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-12-02/amazon-sells-6-billion...
Amazon Raises $3 Billion in First Bond Offering in Decade
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-11-26/amazon-said-to-enter-b...
And then there is the cash flow number from 2014:
Total Cash Flow From Operating Activities 6,842,000
Total Cash Flows From Investing Activities (5,065,000)
Net cash flow before financing 1,777,000
The reason they raised $6 billion from Wall Street in 2014 is because they don't have much free cash flow. Don't let the facts get in the way of your fantasies about Amazon. Maybe Amazon is worth its valuation but don't criticize others when you lack the knowledge about the facts.
Amazon Raises $3 Billion in First Bond Offering in Decade
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-11-26/amazon-said-to-enter-b...
And then there is the cash flow number from 2014:
Total Cash Flow From Operating Activities 6,842,000
Total Cash Flows From Investing Activities (5,065,000)
Net cash flow before financing 1,777,000
The reason they raised $6 billion from Wall Street in 2014 is because they don't have much free cash flow. Don't let the facts get in the way of your fantasies about Amazon. Maybe Amazon is worth its valuation but don't criticize others when you lack the knowledge about the facts.
From what I can tell "social apps" morph all too easily into "anti-social apps" which seem to bring out the worst in a lot of people. I prefer to stay well away.
12
Now if only Facebook and Twitter would follow the same path and destiny of Secret. Do you think that Zuckerberg would return his billions?
5
I wish I could watch it. But I refuse to spend the extra $ over the current high costs of cable when all I currently watch is the news, Top Gear [on BBC America], and an occasional ball game.
4
Same old. SIzzle sells. Making real things that are useful and might benefit humans to make them healthier, happier or serve their needs? What a lame idea. Might actually take 10 years and working 60-70 hours a week with no time to drive a red Ferrari down the canyon road. So many good ideas and real needs wither for lack of funding or end up owned by "offshore" entities and these guys snap up 35 mil for this offal? There's a real ship load of folks with way too much cash to play with and no imagination. Too bad for all of us.
19
Between tech bubbles and the fact that thousands of people are willing to reward hedge fund managers for consistently meager performance means there is just too much cash floating around aimlessly, looking to do nothing else but make more of itself. Maybe if we just taxed it a trifle it might actually do some real good.
33
On the front page of today's Times is an article about top Hedge fund Managers who made upwards of a billion dollars each last year, though most of their funds didn't surpass the S&P 500. Here we have young entrepreneurs building a useless app that served absolutely no purpose save putting a few million into each of their pockets before they pulled the plug. Kind of sucks for those of us who actually have to work to earn a living.
45
This is another argument why most wealth in the financial sector does not create jobs: it's just gambling. Aside from people who invest directly into new companies that create useful products, most investors are just trading stocks and placing bets through various financial instruments. It's hard to see the larger public good in this.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if we changed the tax laws so that capital gains were taxed as income in all cases where the gains were not a direct result of corporate job-creating, product-creating growth. We'd have a very different society!
It would be interesting to see what would happen if we changed the tax laws so that capital gains were taxed as income in all cases where the gains were not a direct result of corporate job-creating, product-creating growth. We'd have a very different society!
7
Between the funding of self-evidently business plan-free apps and the massive spending on political campaigns, I think I have all the evidence I need to conclude that there are far too many people out there with far too much money, for which they have far too little useful purpose.
48
Also the results of a lot of venture capital , low interest rates and the fact that start ups are a lot less expensive to fund,so a lot of money is thrown against a wall.
6
Yes, they're called billionaire oligarchs who are apparently intent on spreading their wisdom into the political arena so they can be our philosopher-king rulers. I, for one, can't wait!
6
How do you convert an anonymous base of users into a business model? Just ask the person in charge of newsstand sales for The New York Times.
9
People invested 35 million in this? The Internet is already about 90% anonymous in a way. We don't directly communicate so there is no inflection to hear the emotion in another person' tone. We have smiley faces. We text and if we want to backtrack, we can always hit an lol to erase the nasty. By the way, if I think it's funny, I will laugh. I don't need a command like a dog.
I hardly go on Facebook unless someone shoots me a direct email but about every few months, I will look on to follow the email. I usually have to scroll through about a 100 photos which are not even close to accurate or current. And apparently, everyone is celebrating a milestone wedding or going to Disney or winning a state championship. And I also saw you at soccer last week and that photo was you on your best day 15 years ago.
People have been trying to be anonymous for years. They aren't putting out the real identities even if they are signing their real name.
I hardly go on Facebook unless someone shoots me a direct email but about every few months, I will look on to follow the email. I usually have to scroll through about a 100 photos which are not even close to accurate or current. And apparently, everyone is celebrating a milestone wedding or going to Disney or winning a state championship. And I also saw you at soccer last week and that photo was you on your best day 15 years ago.
People have been trying to be anonymous for years. They aren't putting out the real identities even if they are signing their real name.
14
Some people need to get a real job.
17
Clearly, they don't. For their total failure they each walked away with a couple million bucks. Those of us with "real" jobs are the suckers.
13
the future, if there is one, will recall this as a frivolous time of squandered opportunities...
16
People seem to see this as a modern phenomenon, but anytime a new technology is introduced, many people try to invent uses for it; few succeed.
How many of us remember the in dash record player for automobiles, the 'CB look" fake antennas, and so many of the other gadgets featured (usually for one year only) in the JC Whitney catalog during the 60's and 70's? The only big difference is that then we were a builder of things, now we are a builder of software; but either can be equally silly.
How many of us remember the in dash record player for automobiles, the 'CB look" fake antennas, and so many of the other gadgets featured (usually for one year only) in the JC Whitney catalog during the 60's and 70's? The only big difference is that then we were a builder of things, now we are a builder of software; but either can be equally silly.
3
“You have to build liquidity in your users,” added Bader-Wechseler.
What... I can't even figure out what idea he tried to express here. This statement makes literally zero sense. Build liquidity in your users so you can trade them? So they can easily move to another service (whoops!)?
Any billionaire who handed money to someone speaking such utter nonsense deserves to lose it.
What... I can't even figure out what idea he tried to express here. This statement makes literally zero sense. Build liquidity in your users so you can trade them? So they can easily move to another service (whoops!)?
Any billionaire who handed money to someone speaking such utter nonsense deserves to lose it.
53
The business world always comes up with bizarre jargon. Usually it is at least somewhat decipherable. This, though, is remarkable. Stream of consciousness babble, it is.
8
Lewis Carroll should be required reading for investors.
7
This reminds me of an old ad from the last millennium (from the middle of the dot.com bubble): a young web designer and a grizzled businessman are looking at a computer monitor. The developer shows the businessman a web site and says: "Look - flaming letters!"
The camera cuts to the screen, and one sees animated flames surrounding a company's name. The developer says "now what can I show you?"
The businessman says: "Show me something that will help my customers place orders on-line..."
As it was before, it is now, and probably ever will be. Tech without end.
The camera cuts to the screen, and one sees animated flames surrounding a company's name. The developer says "now what can I show you?"
The businessman says: "Show me something that will help my customers place orders on-line..."
As it was before, it is now, and probably ever will be. Tech without end.
7
I'm wondering how well Joe's insistence that "Secret" represents a doomed concept will play in one the last communities hosted by a major influential content provider that still tolerates commenters who post by anonymous identities. I use my real name, but I can understand their concerns that someone will seek out their homes to commit some barbarism to assuage their outrage over a worldview they condemn. (Of course, they'd only get my wife and dog, because I'm never there -- I'm a consultant, still active and usually in a hotel somewhere in the bowels of America, where I am as I write this. My wife has expressed concern, though, as has my dog.)
I'm not so sure that "Secret" was a failed concept so much as a failed company. But it's true that "cyberbullying" of less robust personalities has gone down markedly in the WSJ since they required commenters to post under their real names. The Huffington Post has done the same and, of course, that settles the matter as regards propriety.
And it's certainly true that "Silicon Valley" is to MoonbeamLand what "Veep" is to D.C.: hilarious, and more so because most of us suspect it represents reality.
I'm not so sure that "Secret" was a failed concept so much as a failed company. But it's true that "cyberbullying" of less robust personalities has gone down markedly in the WSJ since they required commenters to post under their real names. The Huffington Post has done the same and, of course, that settles the matter as regards propriety.
And it's certainly true that "Silicon Valley" is to MoonbeamLand what "Veep" is to D.C.: hilarious, and more so because most of us suspect it represents reality.
10
@Richard Luettgen
I live in San Francisco's SOMA district, home to many important tech companies like SalesForce, and also a magnet for small startups. When I hit "send" and walk away from my desk, I can look out my window down to the street and see many duplicates of the quintet of guys who form the backbone of Pied Piper marching down the street in formation. They will invariably consist of four white guys and one Asian, either Indian or Chinese. Most will be wearing backpacks. There will be almost no women on the street anywhere, and certainly not in one of these groups. Forty-year old white guys driving by in their Teslas can easily be identified as the VC's who grease the wheels.
Let me allay your suspicions: Michael Judge's "Silicon Valley" is a very accurate representation of reality.
I live in San Francisco's SOMA district, home to many important tech companies like SalesForce, and also a magnet for small startups. When I hit "send" and walk away from my desk, I can look out my window down to the street and see many duplicates of the quintet of guys who form the backbone of Pied Piper marching down the street in formation. They will invariably consist of four white guys and one Asian, either Indian or Chinese. Most will be wearing backpacks. There will be almost no women on the street anywhere, and certainly not in one of these groups. Forty-year old white guys driving by in their Teslas can easily be identified as the VC's who grease the wheels.
Let me allay your suspicions: Michael Judge's "Silicon Valley" is a very accurate representation of reality.
T.S. Eliot missed it: capitalism will die with a laugh, foisted on its own absurdities. The main of which is greed is exempt from all limits and common sense! Just double down and seek the right path through the hubris of mindlessness to the void of the golden mean. There lies the cloud whose touch brings material prosperity. Opps!
16
Ideas which more conventional marketing efforts would show were not serving any unmet need get implemented in the wonderland atmosphere of cyber business, today, but they do not perform any better than some rational means of determining marketability would have predicted. The reason that people actually behave so carelessly is that what at one time was only a prototype can be implemented with less effort if attempted in a more careful way.
2
Thanks for two excellent and fresh articles in a row. Good to read a NYT columnist who is not a broken record
21
This is what happens when you mix greed, technology and philosophy-lite.
If investors are crazy enough to fall for this tripe, well then, it's a free country for capitalists! Better to have people take a shot at a new product or app than more high frequency trading, swaps, and Lord knows what else. Thank goodness we have Mike Judge to catch the fallout.
If investors are crazy enough to fall for this tripe, well then, it's a free country for capitalists! Better to have people take a shot at a new product or app than more high frequency trading, swaps, and Lord knows what else. Thank goodness we have Mike Judge to catch the fallout.
11
Morality is all about how we treat each other. And, as much as we would like to believe otherwise, all humans need both carrot and stick to act properly over time. Total anonymity simply insulates us from the consequences of our impulses, which, by removing the stick part of the equation, virtually ensures that the worst aspects of our nature will come to dominate.
As for finding a way to make money by enabling our basest impulses while also harnessing those to making the world a better place? Strangely, that's already been done. It's called free market capitalism.
As for finding a way to make money by enabling our basest impulses while also harnessing those to making the world a better place? Strangely, that's already been done. It's called free market capitalism.
7
I see this sort of thing all the time in the business school where I work. Most of these ideas, the vast majority, go nowhere. They all start with bone dry tanks. The trick always is to find fuel. Investors are the real object.
The most interesting apps are not the Tumblers or the Twitters, but the marvelous medical and productivity apps competing for those actually scarce dollars. Beyond those, most of what is written about and consumed is trite, silly, and, at the upper end, as absurdly well funded as a presidential candidate. Speaking of trite and silly.
The most interesting apps are not the Tumblers or the Twitters, but the marvelous medical and productivity apps competing for those actually scarce dollars. Beyond those, most of what is written about and consumed is trite, silly, and, at the upper end, as absurdly well funded as a presidential candidate. Speaking of trite and silly.
33
If the approach looks like a short-cut to something more difficult but more effective to do, and if somebody thinks it's a means for them to derive wealth and fame, it comes across to me as just the latest brand of snake-oil medicine. The binding factor seems to me to be to get enough people who want to be part of the in-group to worry that if they don't sign on to this next big thing they'll be left out.
22
They don't call it "Silly dot CON" Valley for nothing.
14
Joe, Please remember that most of the world does not pay even more dollars to some cable company to get HBO.
29
Oh, stop with the anti-Secret snark. It may not have been sustainable, but I found there was something really moving about the people who posted there, describing anxieties and hopes that they were too embarrassed to articulate except anonymously.
2
At least when the tech bubble bursts rents will come down briefly in San Francisco, till the next bubble comes along, which I am thinking is going to be biotech.
6
I posted to secret once -- "I wish I was in Brazil right now" over a Brazilian flag, on the opening of the last World Cup. Four of my contacts ("friends") used secret, they must have all liked that secret, as it went viral --and by the end of the World Cup there were something like 17,000-18,000 likes of the secret, and hundreds of comments in many languages.
Then it, and many other secrets, disappeared.
Then it, and many other secrets, disappeared.
1
Biotech is always the next bubble.
Unless it is fake biotech (think mood rings or testosterone supplements), there are usually real hurdles to the businesses that come from it.
You can't even launch a new toothpaste without the need for approvals and real research. (see http://www.livionexdental.com/ a self-funded 10 year old "start-up", for example) Even when you can prove it works.
The dynamics of biotech are usually much more complicated than those of on-line tech, and require more time before there is anything to show.
Unless it is fake biotech (think mood rings or testosterone supplements), there are usually real hurdles to the businesses that come from it.
You can't even launch a new toothpaste without the need for approvals and real research. (see http://www.livionexdental.com/ a self-funded 10 year old "start-up", for example) Even when you can prove it works.
The dynamics of biotech are usually much more complicated than those of on-line tech, and require more time before there is anything to show.
Good riddance. It's remarkable that Secret received relatively robust financing, likely from investors worried about missing the next Snapchat. People immersed in the online world already expose themselves to significant anonymous criticism, most of which they can laugh off as unserious or peculiar (or both). Why would they want to receive these same sorts of messages from their purported friends and people they know without knowing the sender?
"Unfortunately, Secret does not represent the vision I had when starting the company..." It's still not clear what Byttow's vision was, even if it was never realized, if it wasn't to allow people to do precisely what Sarah Lacy predicted they would do with this app.
"Unfortunately, Secret does not represent the vision I had when starting the company..." It's still not clear what Byttow's vision was, even if it was never realized, if it wasn't to allow people to do precisely what Sarah Lacy predicted they would do with this app.
13
- The billionaires would still be billionaires
- Every year 2-5 of these useless companies would not be funded
- We'd have enough tax money to fix our infrastructure and put more money back into the real economy.