StartupLSatoshi

Cringeworthy post.

A post like this feels like a good way to seal your fate as a victim of the crunch.

It's true that investors make mistakes. Don't feel sorry for yourself or complain about it, figure it out. It doesn't get any easier (or so they tell me)

I'm shocked. </sarcasm>

So, to ask the question that Thiel has asked, is this a market that supports a monopoly, or is it going to be a consumer-favoring highly competitive scene?

Thiel is also an investor in Airbnb– yet another darling of the sharing economy, valued at a “mere” $10 billion compared to Uber’s $18 billion. Unlike Uber and Lyft, Thiel argued, there is no obvious competitor to Airbnb. That in and of itself makes it a more valuable company because of the distraction and profit erosion that he describes throughout his book.

Thiel seems to think that it doesn't support a monopoly, and I'd tend to agree.

So, assuming that it's a competitive market, and Uber and Lyft repeatedly copy the features of one-another, I'm very curious to see what kind of profit margins and therefore valuations are supported.

For a competitive market, it seems like the gap between Lyft's $2.5bn and Uber's $41 is bound to be reduced, one way or the other.

Great article by a guy who truly knows what he's talking about. Josh was one of the investors in Uber's first round of outside financing, back in 2010.

The tl;dr

- don't assume VC inbound means that you'll be able to raise a series A.

- it's easier to raise less, and increase the amount if the round is oversubscribed (having a higher target and having to cut it is a strong -ve signal)

- raise a larger seed. $2.5mm is a number Josh gives in the article. [note, that doesn't mean you should go and raise a $10mm seed round and expect to be evaluated the same as other series A companies when you raise one - smart investors will evaluate your progress relative to how much you've raised]

- pick seed investors who are good at helping seed stage companies. [josh and frc are a great firm, behind some great companies - obviously this is a content marketing piece, but in this case it's also totally true]

- make sure you have enough seed money to reach the key milestones that you need to hit, where those milestones make you an attractive target for a series A

- your seed investors can help prepare you for the A. in many cases, this is exactly how they view their role.

Not really. Sam Altman and Thiel have been friends for a while, and share a significant amount of startup philosophy.

And YC is roughly a representation of Sam Altman's philosophy.

Andreessen Horowitz should shake things up and launch an accelerator of their own.

99% joking, but they have a big enough brand that it would be interesting, at least.

Not that they'd necessarily want to - they get to pick the best YC graduates and take bigger stakes in them, anyway.

I wouldn't say that Musk is joining forces with Google Ventures.

Musk has no involvement with GV and SpaceX raised from Google Inc., not Google Ventures.

This addition iconifies the way the Valley's power structure has been changing over the last few years.

Substantially more (reputation wise) powerful now than 5 years ago:

- Peter Thiel (and Founders Fund)

- Y Combinator

- Joe Lonsdale

- Keith Rabois

And that whole crew. The PayPal mafia (and @sama) are the new tier one.