It’s great that people have the ability to evaluate and invest but the types of investments have been way out of what people have been used to. There is need for both big and small money and it’s more about the concept of collaborating and sharing the burden than just at ripping maximum personal returns from the investments. Yes, there is need for both but hopefully people would do wisely and invest in things that make life better for all.

http://ycombinator.com/rfs9.html

Per your final question Matt, many of the people being made redundant through this shift cannot stay relevant in their current roles because the roles themselves (not the individuals) are redundant.

The answer for each of them can only exist outside a dissolving status quo, and it’s up to them to redefine themselves rather than expect to ride through this chaos on their current job description.

It doesn’t take a lot of money or time to invest on top of this big stack to create applications. However, investments in developing arenas like biotech and green tech generally require large dollars because they don’t have the infrastructure noted above.

Dollars invested should always be a function of the market opportunity. Sometimes we lose sight of the fact that the market controls it, not us (whoever us is). The market doesn’t care if you have $300 mm fund or $300.

Soon what’s old will be new again.

This is not disruption. This is rearranging the deck chairs on the titanic. Or at least getting new people to sit in them.

It’s the smaller investment.

The level of investment that is ‘just enough’to bring your product/service to market.

Not only is it what first-time founders want, better companies will be built because of it. Decisions will have to be solved through innovation & logic not by throwing startup funds at core problems.

next 5 years are gonna be bumpy for VC… should be a fun ride

dmc

In the ancient days, people focused on brands on resumes–which school did you attend? Which companies did you work for?

When I was at D. E. Shaw in the 90s, we had a specific list of 25 CS departments we were allowed to recruit from. Resumes from other schools were automatically filtered out.

The shift to accomplishments was actually progress–rather than relying on brands, we actually cared what people had done. But this was still somewhat unreliable because of the major role luck plays in success.

YC’s accomplishment in these hires is to focus on ability, independent of resume brands or the magnitude of accomplishments. EtherPad was a great product (disclosure, I was an investor) even though Google shut it down after the acquisition. Posterous is a great product, even though its traffic and traction are overshadowed by Tumblr.

I also think that YC is very smart to focus on design and coding for its hires. As an accelerator/seed firm, YC deals with very early stage startups. I often tell founders that until they have a great product, outbound sales and marketing are a waste of time.

But I also want to be fair to the many traditional VCs who do a good job. As a company grows beyond the YC stage, considerations like sales, marketing, operations, and people management become increasingly important.

Many of these are issues that can only be dealt with based on experience, rather than on what one reads in Hacker News. As you grow, traditional VCs and other grey hairs can actually help (though they don’t always do so).

There is disruption going on upstream.

Second markets are disrupting the IPO pipeline.

Independent high-frequency trading has taken over marketmaking from cartels of floor brokers and banks.

Independent registered investment advisers are disrupting stockbrokers.

Individuals are taking charge of their own portfolios with online tools, blogs, communities like StockTwits.

Still some cartels and dinosaurs ripe for disruption.