[mordymoop]

Andreesen went on so many podcasts talking up their crypto bets. It was such a clear failure mode of a massively high horsepower brain drawing elaborate mental constructs to justify an obviously stupid conclusion. His writing is a treasure trove of the kind of poor reasoning that only really smart people are capable of.

[atleastoptimal]

> the kind of poor reasoning that only really smart people are capable of

Putting this on my CV

[kbenson]

I would love to see someone pull that line out in response to "What is your greatest strength and what is your greatest weakness." just to see how the other side responds.

[JKCalhoun]

"I guess I'm too smart for my own good sometimes."

[CPLX]

If he was dumb or it was a bad bet it would be far more forgivable.

The real problem is that it was a confidence scam, they were hyping everything to cash out and rip off ordinary people.

[kbenson]

In what way is that materially different than most VC funded IPOs other than scale? Maybe I'm being a bit facetious, but I think there's a lot more similarities than people might want to admit...

[jacquesm]

Most IPOs are indeed the time to cash out for VCs and early investors but that doesn't mean they're scams. What Andreessen was doing was - in my opinion - a scam, plain and simple.

If a company folds days after the IPO then you probably have a point, but that rarely happens. Many of the companies that IPOd in the last two decades are still trading, and the ones that are not have been scrutinized quite a bit to see what went wrong and how a re-run can be avoided.

I'd be very wary of anything that tries to get a listing without going through the regular IPO process, for instance SPACs and direct listings. The chances of getting scammed there are much, much higher than in the normal IPO process which has many rules and transparency requirements.

[kbenson]

Many crypto coins haven't folded, they're just worth a lot less. Every investor wants to hype the company before an IPO, and many of they are likely looking to recoup some of that investment as soon as they can without too much adverse affect.

I don't think they're the same, but they share quite a few things in common. There's a lot about affecting the public perception, getting the public to act on that perception, and then executing at the most opportune time to take advantage of that public perception. Crypto takes this to 11 by minimizing the actual product and maximizing the impact of affecting public perception, but I can see how VC people could see the crypto cycle as an extension of what they already do.

[jacquesm]

Only a very tiny fraction of all VC investments make it to IPO, whereas all ICOs are offered to the general public from day #1, that's their whole reason for existence. Almost all crypto is a scam, almost none of the VC activity is a scam. Where VC and crypto coincide (such as with the author of TFA) it is pretty clearly a scam too.

[kbenson]

I'll give you that. I'm just focusing less on the scam/not scam portion and more on the actions taken and outcomes expected. Money in, cycles of hype and growth, money out.

The main indicator of whether it was intended to be a scam is possibly best indicated by how much they liquidate in that last step. If they still have a large position after the main hype and growth cycles are done (and it's not mandated by some outside force), then whether it goes south or not they probably weren't intending to scam. If they jump ship when they can, well why were they hyping it so much prior to that if not to scam other people into funding their exit?

[api]

I think they were and still are true believers. Talk to some serious crypto heads. It’s a religion.

[paulpauper]

he said crypto can be used for micro payments for artists. it's like that already exists. it's called Cash App, Venmo, Square, PayPal, etc.