Humane, creator of the fabulous and literally nonfunctional Ai Pin gadget — that’s “Ai,” not “AI” — has finally thrown in the towel. After Humane took $230 million in …
With the whole capital ventures losing 50% value, they likely expected that.
VC don’t go in thinking everything will net them a profit. They expect to lose on most, but that one that does kick off covers for everything that failed.
Plus it’s not like they lose much in the end. Those capital losses get used to offset any capital gains from the one that worked.
There’s something kind of obscene about that, isn’t there? Like, instead of needing to exercise judgement about what’s going to be a good investment in either the profit-generating or the world-improving senses you just have enough money to keep throwing at whatever weird grifter has the right energy this week, but if you repeat it enough and throw enough money down enough holes then you might accidentally end up becoming the richest of all the rich assholes.
It’s like turning being a shitty poker player into a business plan by assuming (correctly) that you’ll always be able to rebuy after you lose your stake.
@YourNetworkIsHaunted@slazer2au yes. Out of all the mechanisms we could have had for deciding how the future is built, we have chosen the absolute worst
per link, venture capital has been very reluctant to unambiguously realise the losses. a $1b book value is an (imaginary) asset you can hug and hold, a $114m loss is not.
With the whole capital ventures losing 50% value, they likely expected that.
VC don’t go in thinking everything will net them a profit. They expect to lose on most, but that one that does kick off covers for everything that failed.
Plus it’s not like they lose much in the end. Those capital losses get used to offset any capital gains from the one that worked.
There’s something kind of obscene about that, isn’t there? Like, instead of needing to exercise judgement about what’s going to be a good investment in either the profit-generating or the world-improving senses you just have enough money to keep throwing at whatever weird grifter has the right energy this week, but if you repeat it enough and throw enough money down enough holes then you might accidentally end up becoming the richest of all the rich assholes.
It’s like turning being a shitty poker player into a business plan by assuming (correctly) that you’ll always be able to rebuy after you lose your stake.
@YourNetworkIsHaunted @slazer2au yes. Out of all the mechanisms we could have had for deciding how the future is built, we have chosen the absolute worst
per link, venture capital has been very reluctant to unambiguously realise the losses. a $1b book value is an (imaginary) asset you can hug and hold, a $114m loss is not.
don’t believe the broadsheets / the gravy train’s a-rockin’