[skrebbel]

Ben Horowitz invested tens of millions into this company [0]. This looks like a pivot away from all the bitcoin hardware and using Ben's relative celebrity status to give it some attention.

Half this thread is about what Ben needs the money for or whether he ought to be donating more to charity, but that's not what this is about. This is just PR for a recent pivot of one of Ben's companies.

All that said, I like the concept.

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2015/05/18/what-is-21-co-really-doing...

Almost offtopic: How do people do this? (and by "this" i mean [0]) Raise millions and millions from established VCs with entirely unproven ideas, no traction, no nothing? Every once in a while we hit an article about a company like that and meanwhile us normal founders are struggling to close a very modest seed round. Is it just a network thing?

[dpweb]

Guessing, but - in convincing someone in a position of power over you, it is very hard for them to reasonably deny you when you have REAL demonstrated experience.

If you don't, its the easiest and sensible thing to deny you. The founder with past experience (startup payoffs) is in an entirely different light.

[sanswork]

The CEO was/is(?) a partner at Andreessen Horowitz.