

Things Overheard at TechCrunch Disrupt - cbryan
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/09/techcrunch-jargon.html

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michael_miller
I love that this article was written by Kevin Roose :). Had to do a double-
take to make sure I wasn't reading an Onion knockoff.

On a more serious note, this article highlights what is a big annoyance of the
startup community. Namely that people are focused on building a startup for
short term profit rather than (genuinely) trying to change the world in a big
way. It's in some ways analogous to the short-term mindset of the finance
industry. Instead of thinking 1,2, or 3 decades out, people are thinking "How
can I get $40m on this company in a couple years?" I would be much more
excited by a community that consisted of people trying to build long term
businesses, not acqui-hires, solutions to mundane problems, or another social
app.

Don't get me wrong, if people want to flip companies for several million
dollars over a couple years, they are will within their right to do so, and I
wouldn't blame them. It's just depressing that our best minds are focused on
making quick flips instead of sustainable truly game-changing businesses. I
look up to people like Steve Jobs (obviously), Elon Musk, Larry Ellison, and
Reed Hastings. These are all people who have transformed industries, and were
not chasing some cheap hack to get a couple million dollars. They built real
products, not sitting in front of their computer, but by going out and meeting
customers, building real solutions to real problems, undertaking genuinely
difficult technical challenges.

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count
People are following the money - it's VERY hard to find backing for a 'change
the world in 20 years' kind of company, but relatively easy to find it for a
'make $40m in 5 years' type of company.

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michael_miller
I completely agree. I think people are following the path of least resistance
to getting money, and this is the crux of what annoys me about the startup
community. The goal is not transform an industry, at whatever cost, regardless
of what anyone says, but get $40m as quickly as possible. Very few people have
genuine convictions that they are hell bent on achieving, or at least it
doesn't show.

~~~
robryan
Optimizing for a goal less likely to fail sounds like a good idea for young
entrepreneurs that don't have any significant net worth or previous successes.

After they are financially setup for life, more seem to gravitate towards the
really big, risky, transformative ideas.

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waterlesscloud
Mostly the usual jargon, though "plat-ag" is pretty annoying.

What's up with the wikipedia entry from Collaborative Consumption? There's a
npov problem there. "Collaborative Consumption is disrupting outdated modes of
business", for example. The whole thing reads like it was written by a Growth
Hacker (tm). <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_consumption>

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Evbn
It was written by a shill for <http://www.collaborativeconsumption.com/> as
shown in the cite. Yeah, it is a self-promo article

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rubidium
Ug. I'm going to defend them despite the easy ability to mock.

Each industry has it's jargon of puff words to convey complex things. In my
field of physics, for example, we'll often use a short-hand word to cover a
very complicated idea, with the understanding that everyone should know what
your talking about... and if they don't they should go learn more about it.
Entanglement, emergence, wavefunction.

The problem is when you don't actually understand the complexities of the idea
just mimic (or make up) the language.

That said, "let's talk about disrupting the disruptors" is always eye-roll
worthy.

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mratzloff
That's true in general, but some of those quotes are just gibberish. "Swimming
in the social stream"...

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rabidonrails
Required posting of Startup Guys vid:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMmdl4VltD4>

~~~
ftwinnovations
Thank you for that. I had not seen!

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greesil
<http://vooza.com/introduction.html>

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Xcelerate
My goal is to make millions quickly with a nifty but superficial startup idea
and then create a giant research lab focusing on science I find interesting
(superconductivity, md simulations, neutrino research, etc...)

Well, that's the plan anyway. Real-life will probably be a lot different.

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anonymous
"Disrupting the disruptors."

Not sure what the speaker meant but in my view that could mean upstaging these
hollow throw-together startups with some sound engineering. No hype solutions
to the same "problems" that "Just work better" (because they are designed
better) and cost less.

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api
Reminds me of why I got out of startups.

