Fantastically written article by someone who doesn’t realize (or articulate?) that they were part of a terribly unique, terribly exploitative movement that is reaching its natural conclusion.
And, of course, I was lucky. Two of the fifty companies I backed are now among the 30 largest software companies in the world. And my IRR from inception has been consistently above 50% per year…for fifteen years. Of course, my sample size is too small to prove anything, but every venture firm’s sample size is too small to prove anything. I don’t know, really, if it was luck or thinking differently that made a difference. It doesn’t matter to me anymore. You can decide.
It’s both, of course! But entertaining the notion that it might be all skill seems dishonest to yourself, IMHO. Investing makes money because that’s how literally everything is setup in our world, and this person was in a unique position to personally assess their investment targets along financial lines in a context where that mattered more than it ever has.
This person just seems more self-aware than most about their strategy (“unicorns!!1!”), while paradoxically being very unaware about their own position within the world (they’re very much an economist, even if they lack the training) and history (the reason computers seem to be “supporting the status quo” instead of disrupting socioeconomic systems is very much something that everyone should have seen coming).
Right now I have enough money to do what I want. I don’t have enough money that other people do what I want. To me that sounds like the perfect place to be.
Beautifully said, really profound thought. This is really the distillation of what socialism promises to strive towards, in my eyes; prosperity enough for personal liberty, without the goal of hierarchy.
On dark days I think of what Jung said in his memoirs: “Only if we know that the thing that truly matters is the infinite can we avoid fixing our interests upon futilities…” My view of the infinite is probably different than Jung’s, but I think he’s right: the only way to avoid feeling like your work is pointless is to contribute to something much larger than yourself.
Another beautifully worded thought, and I wish them Godspeed on this journey. This is the only path that doesn’t end in futility, as far as I can see. I will say, if this is your mindset, be careful not to fall prey to what Hegel would call “a bad infinity” — a single technology, project, or social mechanism that you invest your entire vision of the future in, kinda like thinking of infinity as some specific really big number (a common practice!). True (“good”) infinity is not an object: it is a process, a practice, a dialectical structure that you employ in the limit. It is perpetually approaching the ethos of planting trees whose shade you will never know, not finding the perfect tree to plant.
In the context of pro-social technical contributions in 2024, I think this simply means that you need to buckle down, swallow your pride for a second/month/year, and identify others who are (trying to be-) living the way you think is necessary so that you can learn their motivations and methods, and of course what they need that you can help with. We have been incredibly lucky to be the puzzle-solving class at a time when that was uniquely profitable, but I think humility is necessary when considering these broader questions. I’m a fan of philosophy and cooperative syndicalism, but I’m sure there’s optimistic prosocial groups out there for everybody, if you look deeply enough.
Jeez that was long, whoops — and I’m just some kid so probably wasted breath. Thanks for sharing OP, will be thinking about this fella for a while… again, Godspeed. I’ll leave anyone bored enough to read this far with a better writer than I:
To consider some Being-there as it is in the absolute just consists in saying of it: of course we have spoken of it just now as if it were something, but in the absolute, the A=A, there is nothing of the sort; in the absolute everything is one. To pit this single insight, that in the absolute everything is the same, against discriminating and fulfilled cognition, or cognition seeking and demanding fulfilment—or to pass off its absolute as the night in which, as the saying goes, all cows are black—this is the naiveté of emptiness of cognition.
- Hegel, On Scientific Cognition (the preface to The Phenomenology of Geist)
> Two of the fifty companies I backed are now among the 30 largest software companies in the world. And my IRR from inception has been consistently above 50% per year…for fifteen years.
But then he also writes:
> Right now I have enough money to do what I want. I don’t have enough money that other people do what I want.
I don't know Jerry Neumann's financial situation better than he does, but the man's been doing VC early-stage investing since the 2000s so I find it hard to believe he doesn't have enough money to get other people to do what he wants. Maybe not self-fund a competitor to OpenAI in this environment, but that seems like a failure of his imagination on all the possible companies he could fund. $50k would be enough to get the right someone to do what he wants for a couple of months.
I naturally interpreted that comment in terms of servants, drivers, cleaners, etc., but on second reading, I think you’re right that it’s about companies.
It sounds like he wants to be somewhat safe/financially secure without needing to work more, so I took that to mean “I have $2-6M USD in the bank”, which is the rough FIRE target (last I checked?). You could start a company with that of course, but it would be risking your nest egg to a serious degree, especially at a time where any serious person should be planning for—if not expecting per se-a stock market recession in the next few years.
Compare that to someone with, say, $100M. That’s enough money to build a team of $200-$400K/year engineers, open an office (or a zoom subscription!), and really take an honest swing at some product or other. $50k could hire you a contractor for a bit, but that’s just an addendum.
> $50k would be enough to get the right someone to do what he wants for a couple of months.
It's entirely possible that whatever he wants done can't be done by a single someone in a couple of months. I expect that many things worth doing in the tech space are like that.
It's also possible that by "other people do what I want" he means "I'm able to buy politicians" and similar such things.
This person just seems more self-aware than most about their strategy (“unicorns!!1!”), while paradoxically being very unaware about their own position within the world (they’re very much an economist, even if they lack the training) and history (the reason computers seem to be “supporting the status quo” instead of disrupting socioeconomic systems is very much something that everyone should have seen coming).
Beautifully said, really profound thought. This is really the distillation of what socialism promises to strive towards, in my eyes; prosperity enough for personal liberty, without the goal of hierarchy. Another beautifully worded thought, and I wish them Godspeed on this journey. This is the only path that doesn’t end in futility, as far as I can see. I will say, if this is your mindset, be careful not to fall prey to what Hegel would call “a bad infinity” — a single technology, project, or social mechanism that you invest your entire vision of the future in, kinda like thinking of infinity as some specific really big number (a common practice!). True (“good”) infinity is not an object: it is a process, a practice, a dialectical structure that you employ in the limit. It is perpetually approaching the ethos of planting trees whose shade you will never know, not finding the perfect tree to plant.In the context of pro-social technical contributions in 2024, I think this simply means that you need to buckle down, swallow your pride for a second/month/year, and identify others who are (trying to be-) living the way you think is necessary so that you can learn their motivations and methods, and of course what they need that you can help with. We have been incredibly lucky to be the puzzle-solving class at a time when that was uniquely profitable, but I think humility is necessary when considering these broader questions. I’m a fan of philosophy and cooperative syndicalism, but I’m sure there’s optimistic prosocial groups out there for everybody, if you look deeply enough.
Jeez that was long, whoops — and I’m just some kid so probably wasted breath. Thanks for sharing OP, will be thinking about this fella for a while… again, Godspeed. I’ll leave anyone bored enough to read this far with a better writer than I:
- Hegel, On Scientific Cognition (the preface to The Phenomenology of Geist)