akharris

Joined 16 years ago

Karma
5,058
Submissions
1,466
Member since
Sep 7
Was a partner at YC.
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Recent submissions

Comment · 3 months ago
They missed a great chance to call this "To Serve Man."
Comment · 1 year ago
These are great.

I particularly like Waymo because of aggressively most of the media/talking heads wrote them off as "never going to beat Tesla" because google.

In the end, they took a fundamentally different approach at all levels of the product and won.

Comment · 1 year ago
My list wasn't meant to exhaustive. Honestly not much of a list, just a few examples. SpaceX and Nvidia are both examples of deep technical moats, as are some of the others mentioned by commenters.

I agree with you that many moats are regulatory, but disagree that most moats are. Networks are powerful moats, customer lockin can work well, brand is a strong moat (at least for a time), speed and culture can function as moats.

Fwiw, I don't think any moat is ultimately perfect. Moats themselves are not meant to permanently stop an attacker - they are delaying tactics at best. Companies that stay ahead continuously re-invent and rebuild their differentiation and defenses.

Comment · 1 year ago
Fair enough. I definitely should have added nvidia to the list.
Comment · 1 year ago
Thank you.

What I love about that quote is that he knew that, some day, the cure rate would go even higher.

Comment · 1 year ago
Thank you. I've only ever had bad luck creating Wikipedia entries, though it's been a while.
Comment · 1 year ago
Thank you.
Comment · 1 year ago
Thank you so much. He was.
Comment · 1 year ago
Thank you.

My sister is an incredible write and he was a perfect subject.

Comment · 1 year ago
Thank you.
Comment · 1 year ago
I don't fully understand how he did it. I know he took a lot from the line in the Talmud that said "whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world."

My mom says that his baseline was incredibly high and that he was incredibly resilient. He also had a big rebellious streak, an analytical mind, and endless compassion.

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