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VC investment strategies make a slightly more sense when you consider what the real definition of Disruption is...
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Disruption: Unsustainable driving down of product/service to lowest possible price point using other people's money to bankrupt competitors.
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Disruption: Using unsustainable business practice to drive competitors out of industry, take their customers & return price point to >= orig
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When you realize this, you realize that VCs invest in companies in industries they believe are filled with easily destroyed competitors
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So really VC is like a brute force attack: Hope that if you expend all your energy & $ gracelessly smacking everyone you'll be last standing
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This is why VC-backed media is inherently offensive. It simultaneously displays complete contempt for existing orgs and works to defeat them
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It's also why VC-backed cos are so hard to defeat. You have to defend and attack and they can overextend themselves into an attack w/no risk
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And this is why we've yet to really see a VC backed media org stand up on its own...
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The central disruptive theory of VC backed media, that they'll down all the big players and stand alone, is inherently flawed. They won't.
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But by VC-backed media playing by a different set of rules, one in which they can spend more while earning less, they hurt everyone.
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Inevitably, VC-backed media is a kamikaze run at the industry. Which is why they hope for acquisition.
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It's either acquisition by big media or 1 day you overextend & collapse when VC decides today they don't catch your badly balanced media co
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The irony is that while they're pounding on the shields of the establishment, they are making it harder for anyone to acquire them.
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Of course, there are a few exceptions. People who take VC and make stable companies. But most don't, because that *isn't* the point of VC.
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If you really want to make a stable company, you wouldn't be putting yourself in unrealistic debt to VC to do it. VC is for "disruption"
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This is a long way of saying Vox and Mic frustrate me to no end. How are journalistic ethics compatible with operating a business this way?
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Yeah, Elite Daily too aexm/813778242452803585
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See, the problem w/making your business about undercutting competition is, when you fail to do so, it costs & costs bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-12-20/uber-s-loss-exceeds-800-million-in-third-quarter-on-1-7-billion-in-net-revenue
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The reason Facebook's moves in regard to news should be entirely expected is the modern tech company only sees external companies in 3 ways: Aquire Eventually Bankrupt by Duplicating Functionality Brings in users by extending tools that will be turned off once users are captured
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Disruption is just building an unprofitable company in an attempt to create a monopoly by lying to your customers and then switching how much you charge them once you've eliminated consumer choices. nytimes.com/2018/05/16/technology/moviepass-economy-startups.html
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'Disruption' is terrible and will probably destroy your favorite TV shows as it pushes HBO to race to the bottom - Chronotope/1016687003705008128
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Exactly: dansolomon/1024468425446440961
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The exact nature of 'disruption' is continually on display. Use a store of cash to undercut competitors and gatekeepers, absorb their clients, own the marketplace, give favors to those who comply. Can't wait for the Spotify subscription cost to go up again bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-11-09/spotify-to-musicians-let-us-be-your-label
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The important thing to remember is this isn't about helping small artists, this is about making Spotify the only label that will give you real royalties... until they capture enough of the marketplace to stop doing so and leave you with no where else to go.
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The problem with this model is it is cancerous. It pushes out companies with legitimate models in which they can operate profitably and provide low prices. Who can compete with a suicidal business plan?
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It doesn't take a smart person to employ an economic brute force attack, and there's a reason this is the favored tactic of VCs, and it isn't because having money automatically makes you smart. moorehn/1218847032896638977?s=19