Here’s examples from six of list of top ten companies by market cap
Apple is worth $3 trillion despite being on the verge of bankruptcy in the mid-nineties. Google is now worth 1.9 trillion. The founders tried and failed to sell it for 1 million. Amazon’s stock price dropped 90% during dot com crash Nvidia, recently world’s most valuable business, had to lay off half its staff in 1997 and try to win a market with ~100 other startups all competing for same prize Elon Musk: “I thought SpaceX and Tesla both had >90% chance of failure”. He was sleeping on his friends coaches to avoid paying rent at that time. Facebook’s rise was so tumultuous they made a movie about it. Now worth 1.3 trillion. Warren buffet regretted buying Berkhire Hathway, and almost sold it. Now worth 744 billion.
Talking about EA more specifically
~10 founders have spilled the details of their journeys to me. ~70% felt hopeless at least once. There’s been at least four or five times I’ve been close to quitting. I had to go into credit card debt to finance our charity. I’ve volunteered full-time for >4 years to keep the costs lower, working evenings to pay rent. Things are now looking a lot better e.g. our funders doubled our budget last year and we’re now successfully treating ~4-5x more people than this time last year.
I’ve had similar worries. Most extremely impactful projects look destined to fail half a dozen times before they blow up.
The right balance is hard to strike between incentivising determination and encouraging people to waste less money on ideas that prove weak.
Do you have any examples of this?
Here’s examples from six of list of top ten companies by market cap
Apple is worth $3 trillion despite being on the verge of bankruptcy in the mid-nineties.
Google is now worth 1.9 trillion. The founders tried and failed to sell it for 1 million.
Amazon’s stock price dropped 90% during dot com crash
Nvidia, recently world’s most valuable business, had to lay off half its staff in 1997 and try to win a market with ~100 other startups all competing for same prize
Elon Musk: “I thought SpaceX and Tesla both had >90% chance of failure”. He was sleeping on his friends coaches to avoid paying rent at that time.
Facebook’s rise was so tumultuous they made a movie about it. Now worth 1.3 trillion.
Warren buffet regretted buying Berkhire Hathway, and almost sold it. Now worth 744 billion.
Talking about EA more specifically
~10 founders have spilled the details of their journeys to me. ~70% felt hopeless at least once. There’s been at least four or five times I’ve been close to quitting. I had to go into credit card debt to finance our charity. I’ve volunteered full-time for >4 years to keep the costs lower, working evenings to pay rent. Things are now looking a lot better e.g. our funders doubled our budget last year and we’re now successfully treating ~4-5x more people than this time last year.
The 2007 GiveWell marketing fiasco arguably came close to ending the project.