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coffeebeqn commented on Why Startups Die   techfounderstack.com/p/wh... · Posted by u/makle
grandiego · 4 days ago
Of course almost all startups expect a long live, but strategically it may be better (for the founders) to close when the fundamental assumptions are no longer valid, in order to do a future clean restart in a brand new endeavor (usually after a detox period).
coffeebeqn · 4 days ago
Opportunity cost is very real. Chasing the wrong thing for 5 years can leave you broke instead of pocketing 7 figures gross elsewhere
coffeebeqn commented on Why Startups Die   techfounderstack.com/p/wh... · Posted by u/makle
pedrozieg · 4 days ago
A lot of this “startups commit suicide, not homicide” framing feels like it pathologizes what is often a rational choice. Most founders don’t “give up” in some moral sense, they just run out of personal runway before the company produces enough evidence that the sacrifice is still worth it. Cash runway is visible on a spreadsheet; emotional runway, health, relationships, and opportunity cost aren’t, but they’re just as real a constraint.

What I’ve seen kill companies is the mismatch between those two curves: the time it takes to get real signal from the market vs the time a small group of humans can tolerate living in permanent crisis mode. In a ZIRP world you could paper over that with cheap capital; in 2025 you can’t. Calling that “suicide” makes it sound like a failure of grit, when it’s often just updating on new information about your life and the macro environment and deciding this particular lottery ticket isn’t worth any more years.

coffeebeqn · 4 days ago
Calling it suicide is assuming that most startups shouldn’t fail of “natural causes”. There’s nothing bad or unnatural about a startup not being viable. It’s not like every company can be viable just by sacrificing a bit more for a bit longer
coffeebeqn commented on Is it a bubble?   oaktreecapital.com/insigh... · Posted by u/saigrandhi
projektfu · 4 days ago
I have heard many software developers confidently tell me "pilots don't really fly the planes anymore" and, well, that's patently false but also the jetliners autopilots do handle much of the busy work during cruise, and sometimes during climb-out and approach. And they can sometimes land themselves, but not efficiently enough for a busy airport.
coffeebeqn · 4 days ago
Autopilot based on a LLM would guarantee I’d never fly again
coffeebeqn commented on Rubio stages font coup: Times New Roman ousts Calibri   reuters.com/world/us/rubi... · Posted by u/italophil
ksynwa · 4 days ago
Calibri is woke?
coffeebeqn · 4 days ago
I guess I’m glad they’re focusing on this rather than breaking something else in society
coffeebeqn commented on 30 Year Anniversary of WarCraft II: Tides of Darkness   jorsys.org/archive/decemb... · Posted by u/sjoblomj
Tiktaalik · 5 days ago
This is a really good and I think sadly under played and discussed game. It was very popular in the mid 1990s on release but it seems like it was immediately forgotten about once Starcraft arrived. It's unfortunate because yes it's a simpler and more straight forward game, and not as balanced, but it is very fun and pure.

Warcraft 1 is maybe too slow paced and basic to be enjoyable, but Warcraft 2 remains very playable, as many of the usability of features core to modern RTS games developed here. There are a few things missing, but that just means you have to be more on the ball with the micro.

The map editor was revolutionary at the time, and it was trivially easy to be making usable maps within minutes.

One thing that was delightful about this game was how the community discovered that Farms made for better walls than the actual walls, and so an enormous variety of strategies developed around this. As players developed knowledge of how units were pushed out of buildings, walling off buildings to push units past forest was another strategy that developed from this, creating the potential for sneaky tricks.

One unfortunate thing about the game was that during the original battlenet edition they added a new extra fast speed, which everyone moved to, but that speed actually kinda broke the game in that it became entirely possible to accidentally put your townhall too close to the mine, and your peons would be impossible to remove from mining. So in actuality the second to fastest speed is the correct speed for this game.

I hope this got fixed in the remaster but I heard it was a pretty basic art refresh...

coffeebeqn · 5 days ago
I have great memories from the Warchest which had I, II and expansions. Personally though Warcraft III perfected the RPG elements and storytelling and completely overshadowed the earlier installments - it’s still probably the best game I’ve played
coffeebeqn commented on Pebble Index 01 – External memory for your brain   repebble.com/blog/meet-pe... · Posted by u/freshrap6
Aurornis · 5 days ago
> How long does the battery last?

> Roughly 12 to 15 hours of recording. On average, I use it 10-20 times per day to record 3-6 second thoughts. That’s up to 2 years of usage.

I feel like I’m usually good about being able to imagine a market for different devices even when I’m not the target audience, but I’m having a hard time with this one.

Having 20 different 3-second thoughts transcribed to notes that I have to process every day sounds more like added complications than problem solving. If I stretch, I can think of a few things that flashed into my mind and then I forgot again for a couple days because I wasn’t in a location to immediately pull out my phone and put it on my todo list (which takes about 10 seconds because I put a shortcut in my lock screen). However, those locations weren’t something where I could be “whispering” to a ring, either.

So I don’t know. I hope repebble succeeds with everyone they’re doing, but this product feels like they went too far into the novelty end of the spectrum and neglected some of the actual usability that made the original Pebble popular.

EDIT: On second thought, maybe the lack of recharging is an acknowledgement that they don’t actually expect people to use this product a lot or for very long. Maybe the target audience is people who want to have something new and unique that they can also use as a conversation starter. Once the novelty wears off maybe it doesn’t get worn much. If it does become popular with a niche audience they can release a V2 with charging.

coffeebeqn · 5 days ago
Recently I rediscovered that this has been solved by a small notepad that fits in my pocket and a pen. Maybe I should get some VC money for that
coffeebeqn commented on Cloudflare was down   cloudflare.com/... · Posted by u/mektrik
PlotCitizen · 10 days ago
This is a good reminder for everyone to reconsider making all of their websites depend on a single centralized point of failure. There are many alternatives to the different services which Cloudflare offers.
coffeebeqn · 10 days ago
We just love to merge the internet into single points of failure
coffeebeqn commented on Cloudflare was down   cloudflare.com/... · Posted by u/mektrik
berkes · 10 days ago
At least this warrants a good review of anyone's dependency on cloudflare.

If it turns out that this was really just random bad luck, it shouldn't affect their reputation (if humans were rational, that is...)

But if it is what many people seem to imply, that this is the outcome of internal problems/cuttings/restructuring/profit-increase etc, then I truly very much hope it affects their reputation.

But I'm afraid it won't. Just like Microsoft continues to push out software, that, compared to competitors, is unstable, insecure, frustrating to use, lacks features, etc, without it harming their reputation or even bottomlines too much. I'm afraid Cloudflare has a de-facto monopoly (technically: big moat) and can get away with offering poorer quality, for increasing pricing by now.

coffeebeqn · 10 days ago
Vibe infrastructure
coffeebeqn commented on Leak confirms OpenAI is preparing ads on ChatGPT for public roll out   bleepingcomputer.com/news... · Posted by u/fleahunter
JadoJodo · 16 days ago
Now we just have to wait and see whether it’s…

“I’d be happy to answer your question… right after a word from our sponsor: Xyeniceli. Side effects may include ...”

OR

ChatGPT: “Why don't you let me fix you some of this Mococoa drink? All natural cocoa beans from the upper slopes of Mount Nicaragua. No artificial sweeteners.”

User: “What the hell are you talking about? Who are you talking to?”

ChatGPT: “I've tasted other cocoas. This is the best.”

coffeebeqn · 16 days ago
I think it’ll be more like. “Find me a tire shop within 10 miles” - “oh my goodness I just happen to have just the place for you with a special coupon CHAT25 for 25% off your first service”
coffeebeqn commented on A Remarkable Assertion from A16Z   nealstephenson.substack.c... · Posted by u/boplicity
d_burfoot · 17 days ago
Hypothesis C: failure of human memory. A human read Stephenson's book(s) 20 years ago, remembers that the endings were a bit unsatisfying. The same human also read some other book many years ago, which ends mid-sentence. In that person's mind, the two are conflated.
coffeebeqn · 17 days ago
If I was writing a book review for my company (big famous VC who cares about their reputation) - I would’ve probably at least popped the book open and read a few chapters if it’s been years since I read it

u/coffeebeqn

KarmaCake day3581November 9, 2022View Original