[soundsgoodtome]

Hey can we save this kind of comment for Reddit? Literally the majority the tech you use today was born from companies that were unprofitable and leveraged VC funds at some point.

I don’t know about you, but I come to HN for discourse that I could not get on race-to-the-bottom social media sites.

[tgv]

Well, Intel, Apple and Microsoft, to name a few, have (nearly) always been profitable. But isn't VC supposed to invest in things that are likely to return a profit? There's some risk, which is offset against the ROI, but I don't see a good reason to invest in companies that run a loss.

[jnmandal]

I disagree. The poster has an interesting point and contrarian perspective. Is it a grandiose metaphor? Probably. Can we learn from the discourse? Definitely.

Even if the hyperbolic claim you made was true (it's not - see below if you want), why should we all be polite, pious disciples of Silicon Valley? It's ok to critique things, even when they provide some good.

N.B. I think it's more accurate to say the actual majority of tech we use is born from government funded research à la the entrepreneurial state. One should not confuse R&D with commercialization.

[izacus]

It absolutely was not.

[MrMan]

HN is much worse than many sub-reddits. Look at the belligerent ignorance on display not just here, but that which is demonstrated by the VCs who seem to collectively lack a sufficient knowledge of finance and other things. The decline in quality is evident here, and it doesn't stack up well compared to places where people mostly know what they are talking about.