not_that_noob

YouTube also leads you down radical rabbit holes as that keeps the algorithm happy. How many of the recent terror attacks (ISIS or New Zealand type incidents) were fostered by YouTube watching?

No mention of the purchase price - tho Looker was likely flying in unicorn heights.

There are investors out there who don’t insist on control. I know of at least two - IndieVC and Earnest Capital. Their investment can be paid back in cash over time from earnings.

I mean, mass immigration with no borders is exactly how humans spread out from Africa to populate the world. Seems it’s worked out great for humanity.

And speaking as a resident of the Bay Area, I greatly appreciate the diverse people I meet. Not to mention the wide food choices.

Real estate remains one of last few asset classes where ownership can be obfuscated reliably. This makes it ideal to park money of dubious provenance. If you bring transparency to the system - much like know-your-customer did to banking - this phenomenon will largely disappear. The local residents have reached a point I think for this to happen in Vancouver - and it could spread to other similar cities.

I wonder if the type of instrumental music makes a difference. I find that soft techno like dub techno helps me focus, while classical does not.

+1. I feel you. The only upside - it made me read everything more carefully. Significant deal points can be missing, or subtle giveaways that negate the actual deal term two paragraphs up. And the best part - they charge you by the hour for correcting their damn mistakes! Yeah I'm not buying what that partner's selling.

@justin - congrats! How do the fees compare vs a traditional law firm? I love the price-predictability part, but can you shed a bit more light?

Index funds have beaten most active management over the long run. If you think about it, YC is a huge index fund in startups. The problem is not data-based prediction - just that it is impossible to pick winners a priori, no matter how much data you have. Ergo the clearly viable long run strategy is to invest in as many as you can. This is why YC is maximizing volume, with the latest being the Startup School.

The other option of course is to invest large amounts into startups that are well on their way, but Sequoia and AH have a corner on that market. And now YC wants to play there as well, with their larger fund.

So there's no oxygen left for a lot of the VC firms in the valley. There's no shortage of money looking for VC funds, as returns are low in general asset classes. So you have this imbalanced situation, where dinky startups get incredible valuations, and there are too few genuine investment opportunities to go around. SC are one of the marquee victims, but other walking dead abound, though they dress snappy so it's hard to tell they're really dead.

Some of this is of course the Chinese government placing its thumb on the scales in favor of local businesses. It does this for a lot of reasons, but it's clear it happens.

However, compare the situation to other more open countries (e.g. India, Japan, Indonesia ) There are culture, social and language specific nuances that local entrepreneurs understand far better than outsiders, and that accounts for a significant portion of these copycat business success.

I think American business generally have a tough time accounting for the latter into account when they go overseas. IOW, not all of Jack Ma's success stems from the government being on his side.

I wonder how much of the European decline was driven by GDPR rules, especially opt-in requirements. GDPR-like laws are being debated on and passed here in the US by individual states. Probably a tough environment to expand on MAU right now.

The parallel to the fall of the Soviet Union is interesting. The state slowly ran out of money, and couldn’t pay the military complex, including the army. The army’s loyalty to the leadership essentially disappeared, and then the empire fell.

Also note that the militaries of Burma or Venezuela are always well provided for, even when the people are repressed or starving. I feel successful dictators have an instinctual grasp of this relationship.