

Startup Koolaid - It's a beverage, it's a lifestyle - shiftb
http://startupkoolaid.com/

======
gavanwoolery
Jokes are just witty truths.

The startup scene is increasingly becoming a joke. I mean no disrespect to
anyone who works in the scene - not to employees, not to founders, and not
even to many investors. I used to be part of it myself. But what the hell is
going on? People are trying to find out how many ways they can push around
bits of information. They get an investment, iterate like crazy, and strive to
get acquired, only to have their product completely destroyed by their new
parent company.

Out of all the startups EVER created, I have only used a few products with
more than passing interest: Facebook, Google, Youtube, Stack Overflow, and
Yelp. And I consider myself to be pretty geeky. Having at least a crude
understanding of economic concepts like supply and demand, the startup economy
boggles my mind. How is it that so much money is getting circulated around
hundreds of thousands of startups when only a handful of them survive for more
than 3 years? (And yes, I often count acquisitions as "certain death.")
Consumer goods have immediate and often necessary value. Houses last a long
time, and carry obvious value. But tech companies can fizzle into nothingness
in seconds. These days, value is measured in the size of your user base, which
is kind of like monetizing a cat based on how many people pet it. Startups are
getting so cheap to produce, I feel like we might as well be trading ideas.

All I can say is thank god for the sham. It is keeping me employed. :)

 _END INCOHERENT MIDNIGHT RANT_

~~~
emmett
It's important to keep in mind that the total amount of money going into early
stage startups is still a rounding error on larger economic investment.
Numbers that feel personally large, like "$40 million" are actually very small
in economic terms.

~~~
epo
Most monetary amounts are small when compared to the economy as a whole. Got
any more insights for us? "The sky is only blue when you compare to grass"
perhaps?

------
coderdude
Pretty funny. Does sort of show how laughable the startup scene is. Especially
the tech startup scene. It's interesting to stand back and see how "startups"
is an industry in and of itself. Almost like some kind of meta-industry. Keep
selling us dreams and gold pans! :)

------
ljf
<pedant alert>

The thing that always niggles me about the 'drinking the company/start-up
Koolaid' is it's reference to the Jonestown massacre. It was actually Flavor-
Aid that was used to mask the Valium, chloral hydrate, cyanide, and Phenergan,
and kill 907 people.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonestown#Deaths_in_Jonestown> /
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flavor_Aid>

</pedant>

~~~
veyron
I thought it was a reference to Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters (for some
reason, it was deemed a good idea to have 9th grade students read the Electric
Kool-Aid Acid Test)

~~~
ljf
I'd always though it was that too - I'd presumed was a roughly positive
expression, eg once you've drunk the company Kool-Aid, you get to see the
bigger picture and understand more.

A visiting American put me right, before I'd had chance to use it incorrectly!

(Amazing book btw, love it)

------
BrainScraps
This is loving and potent satire. Well played, folks!

------
borism
it's missing some important items like Paul Graham's 101 Start-up Commandments
and something YC-themed I couldn't come up with yet.

~~~
asergeeva
Submit your product. If accepted, we'll take 6% in exchange for you working on
it for the next 3 months. 100k investment not guaranteed.

~~~
KHPatel
When she said 6%, she sort of meant 100%

------
braveheart2233
genius!

------
massarog
Site is down for me.

~~~
williamldennis
up for me

