In which sense? You want me to evaluate if the ideas are good? Or if I would take a swing at bringing them to fruition?
More importantly, how does my vague notion of the ideas are good or bad tie back to my original point that investors willing to loan instead of taking ownership is perhaps more sane?
If your stance is that you're correct with your perspective on loan vs equity, we shouldn't continue to engage but if that's not the case, ask yourself: how would the terms of a loan look like to a young teenager who is just getting into the workforce vs an established professional who has a proven credit history?
> More importantly, how does my vague notion of the ideas are good or bad tie back to my original point that investors willing to loan instead of taking ownership is perhaps more sane?
First, no one is forcing you at gunpoint to respond to me, so feel free to engage and go as deep as you want, as much as you care to, or not at all.
Second, investing, typically in shares of a company, is very different from giving a loan to the same company. Loans are typically based off collaterals, even if it's "unsecured" - it's always secured by something, even if as nebulous as just a credit history or "ability to pay".
No one reasonable in 2026 will argue collaterals with sama or OpenAI today, but I assure you, there was an entire universe of companies that would not give sama a loan in the early 2000s when he struggled to live paycheck to paycheck, or even OpenAI itself (a loan) in 2016 when they were exploring household and gym robots. I'll make the exact same argument for NVIDIA late 2018 to early 2020 post the cryptocurrency demand correction or even before that 2010 to 2015 - go look at the tickers back then.
So again, with the complete power of retrospect:
- Is NVIDIA a company you would loan your own money to?
- Is Dropbox a company you would loan your own money to?
If you get caught up in details like "how long is the term" or "what's the expected ROI of the loan", be generous with those details.
> Second, investing, typically in shares of a company, is very different from giving a loan to the same company.
No shit. This is essentially my point.
I don't care what companies will or will not exist on each model; What I care about is the sort of incentive each model creates.
In a model where investors give loans to nascent companies as a mean for those to have needed capital, the incentives are there for a company to make sense, grow organically, and chase profitability. In other words, the incentive is there for companies to be economically viable.
The model you defend creates an incentive for destructive growth. Investing in exchange of equity only makes sense to reach the exit event, no matter how ruinous things are as a result. It's a model that creates this shitty hustle-culture grift-economic. I will have trouble to express politely how much I think it makes the world a shittier place.
As I said, I indirectly benefitted from it, but I recognize that this model sort of sucks.
So, it doesn't really matter if I would have loaned money to those ventures (in a scenario where I am someone in the position of loaning money). But for the sake of entertaining you, I'll reply:
- NVidia: Maybe. The hardware business is cutthroat, but I think a company can be sustainable producing computer hardware.
- Dropbox: Probably not. Neat idea, but easy to copy by larger players or other upstarts.
- Diffusion LLMs: No. Too experimental, and I likely would not have seen potential for it early on.
> In a model where investors give loans to nascent companies as a mean for those to have needed capital
What would be the collateral a lender(s) would use to loan NVIDIA money in 1993 when it had no assets, nor revenue, nor a proven business plan?
Even if a lender(s) provided a loan without any collateral, what would be the terms of that loan? What would be the amount of loan, who would it be underwritten against, what would be the APR?
Is the idea of a company or companies that R&D and sell GPUs good?
Is the idea of Dropbox good?
Is the idea of diffusion LLMs good?