David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)Sep 21, 2024

Imagine you’re in a casino. Someone walks up to the roulette table, puts $1000 on 14. They win! They now have $50,000. Now they move to another table, and put $500 on red. They lost, so they put $1,000 on red. They lose again. They put $2,000 on red. They win! Now they have $50,500! They’re such a winner!

You didn’t see that they put $1,000 on 14 every day for the past twenty days. They only won because they are able to afford to lose $20,000. They’re actually only $30,500 up, but that’s still a big win. You also didn’t see the ten other people who tried the same strategy, but never landed on a table that came up with their number.

This is the kind of person that Silicon Valley idolises.

Show threadTim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPESep 22, 2024

@david_chisnall The VCs don't know who's going to win so they have to spread their bets. Nobody else knows either, otherwise the VCs would buy that information and only bet on the winners.

So most start-ups fail and lose money for their backers. The alternative is no funding, thus no start-ups, thus the few winners that would have emerged never do.

Show threadCassandrichSep 22, 2024
@TimWardCam @david_chisnall "No startups" sounds like an excellent outcome for everyone but the VCs and a very small portion of founders.
Show threadTim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPESep 22, 2024

@dalias @david_chisnall So no Acorn, then, and hence no ARM, and hence no mobile phones etc.

Well, no doubt some people would think that an improvement 😂

Show threadCassandrichSep 22, 2024
@TimWardCam @david_chisnall None of that follows.
Show threadTim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPESep 22, 2024
@dalias @david_chisnall One day Acorn didn't exist, the next day it did. I don't know what else you'd call it.
Show threadCassandrichSep 22, 2024

@TimWardCam @david_chisnall Nothing about the existence of mobile phones depends or depended on the existence of ARM. They were just the vendor whose component happened to be in the right place at the right time. Any other would have worked just as well.

That's independent of whether Acorn was ever a "startup", which has a specific meaning in this domain. I don't know their early history.

Show threadTim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPESep 22, 2024
@dalias @david_chisnall I'm not aware of any technical meaning of the world "start-up". In plain English it's used to describe a company that was started from scratch, rather than spun off from a larger company, for the stages of its existence from creation until some nebulous point where it is "clearly" a serious going concern.
Show threadRichard BarrellSep 22, 2024
@TimWardCam in the context of this specific conversation, by "startup" all the other people here mean "VC funded" or at least "in the silicon valley zeitgeist and mostly behaving in a typical silicon valley startup like manner". (Hence all the gambling analogies.)
Show threadTim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE
@0x2ba22e11 So ... if a company has started up, but hasn't got any VC funding (yet), it's not a "start up" in Silicon Valley terms? - it is in #Cambridge terms.
Sep 22, 2024 at 4:34pmWeb