This brought me back. I was a member of the UC Berkeley Computer Science Undergraduate Association (https://www.csua.berkeley.edu) in the early aughts. Through the CSUA I came across a job posting for a sysadmin job at Skotos Tech (https://www.skotos.net/), the multiplayer text games company Christopher Allen founded after his work at Consensus Development/Certicom to develop the SSL/TLS implementation for Netscape. It's been a long and strange road.
This article would be more accurately titled, "Why you shouldn't try to build a venture capital funded business." Of course, my suggested title is not nearly as compelling and edgy as the actual title, and would be less likely to make it to the front page of Hacker News.
The content in the article isn't inaccurate or misleading per se, but it's also basically repackaging well understood information about the economics of startups and venture backed businesses.
Further, the author asserts that, if you're trying to optimize your personal economic outcomes, you should not pursue venture funding. But this wrongly assumes that money is the sole motivator people have for starting a business. Further, it ignores the massive economic value that the venture ecosystem has created.
Some people want to retire early. Some people have bigger ambitions. Neither group is right or wrong, but, if you're starting the business, you should know which group you're part of.
I have a friend that's super smart, currently works in biotech, and studied computer science, would you be interested in chatting with him about possible applications? Happy to make an introduction if you like!
I know I’m not Simon but I’ve been in this space for a while and would love to chat with your friend about what applications they’re thinking about and how they’ve been solving this problem at their current company.
Are launch congratulations in order? If so, congratulations! I'm super excited to see where you take this, and I hope you're able to find a solid business model to support you and your work.
