* A few companies might manage to avoid the exit by buying out their investors or due to sheer luck (ask the FastMail folks for their story over a beer sometime) or try to postpone it (see Automattic) but that’s not statistically significant/not how the system’s designed to work.
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Instead of this shortsighted, greed-driven, Vegas-style system, we can do things sustainably in Europe. Let’s invest not in disposable Startups but in Stayups—companies without equity that cannot sell, where the return is share of revenue/profit. Let’s get rid of exits.
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And, if we’re investing the EU taxpayer’s money — if we’re investing from the commons — let’s stipulate that the fruits of that investment must enrich the commons; that the products created are free/open, decentralised, & interoperable. Let’s build ethical tech infrastructure.
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It took me far too long to realize that VC actually *requires* the Facebooks, Googles, etc to be killed, otherwise the whole model would fall apart.
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Do you mean because if they get too big then it becomes impossible to compete with them? They’ve got the answer to that: Google, etc., are doing VC now. (Yeah, the system creates a zero-sum game that is, ultimately, unsustainable. It’s a system only a sociopath could love.)
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Ah I mean, after the exit VC has realized their gains, but they keep re-upping larger and larger funds so their model actually requires them to fund companies to kill companies they've funded and exited
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Try a bank loan then. You want money for free. Perhaps this isn't the Disneyworld that you thought it should be.
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But read Shoe Dog before you get one
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Stupid statement. First each VC is different with different goals. If I read the word exit in a plan's first few pages I stop reading it. I focus on teams who want to build and eventually want an IPO. Sale exit is a necessity sometimes not the goal. Kill VC & kill innovation
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Such a strange point-of-view. I don't know a VC that isn't clear on this point - and if that's not ok with you, don't take their investment. I haven't yet for this reason - but I didn't think it was poison. It was just a set of trade-offs.
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What you described isn’t poison - it’s an investment - they also want your company to grow. If you fail everybody looses. The problem is when you and VC see profit in different areas (and push you in that area) or in different timeline. Choose your partners wisely (not just VCs)
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Flip your lens. What is it when absolute control re an org’s existence death sale & profit distr rests w/ in Ppl who restrict profits to their personal gain while refusing to equally enrich EVERY participant who made a co grow? And ppl say feudalism died in the 14th Century.
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Again - depend on which partners you choose and on what terms you agree. People are getting screwed without VCs by making wrong deals with wrong people. There is a myth that you can’t make it without VC money. But also - quick example - we wouldn’t have GitHub without VC money
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Ditto Cambridge Analytica. Axiom. Prosper. And a gaggle of other illegal Surveillance Capitalists partnered w/ the most vicious and lawless Governments humanity has ever seen. At the speed of the net. Read all Aral’s analyses b4 you judge.https://twitter.com/aral/status/1008091148185894912?s=21 …
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What’s the third option that VC precludes? Being successful and not selling the company?
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Both entrepreneurs and VCs have to be accountable to the LPs investment horizon. Isn't that how capital markets work? People wouldn't get their pensions and stuff.
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And rampant unrestrained Capitalism is the sadistic psychopath of every modern economy. You give me hope, Aral. As long as nations, like Russia, whose vatniks let Putin’s Mafioso destroy their economy, are prevented from making their crimes our problem (or blowing up our
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And they're nearly always in a hurry because time-value-of-money etc
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It can be poison but for cash-trapped startups it may be the only food available
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An IPO is not an entirely terrible option.
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