I truly despise this “method” of building a business
I used to think this way and then I realized "whats the difference between a company that raises $100M to put it all in sales & marketing, and one that raises $100M to acquire a business with paying customers"
The answer is the latter one is much easier to do.
At some point someone is purchasing the asset for $1B. If both instances get purchased for $1B, then why do you care how they got there (assuming they both did it legally)?
You're being tricked into thinking there is "one way to build a business". There isn't.
It's not that there is only some moral goodness in building a business from scratch. I hate the idea of rich people just using their wealth and connections to succeed, basically using their connections to get undeserved access to capital. Society would be better off if it didn't happen.
What's not especially useful in my opinion is wealthy people who are failing in their company calling up their buddies to get more funding to buy up other companies that are doing something useful and successful when your own product is failing. Regardless of this case, we are all better served - & society is better served too - by new companies creating technologies and solving problems that succeed or fail on their own merits; the group that is not better served by this is people who succeed through influence peddling and connections to other rich people.
Comments
I used to think this way and then I realized "whats the difference between a company that raises $100M to put it all in sales & marketing, and one that raises $100M to acquire a business with paying customers"
The answer is the latter one is much easier to do.
What's the difference between conning wealthy rubes out of $100M and building a business that earns $100M?
I don't really care which is easier. Neither are easy, but the latter provides value to more than the con artist, while the first does not.
At some point someone is purchasing the asset for $1B. If both instances get purchased for $1B, then why do you care how they got there (assuming they both did it legally)?
You're being tricked into thinking there is "one way to build a business". There isn't.
It's not that there is only some moral goodness in building a business from scratch. I hate the idea of rich people just using their wealth and connections to succeed, basically using their connections to get undeserved access to capital. Society would be better off if it didn't happen.
Please do tell. What exactly do you mean "from scratch"?
What's not especially useful in my opinion is wealthy people who are failing in their company calling up their buddies to get more funding to buy up other companies that are doing something useful and successful when your own product is failing. Regardless of this case, we are all better served - & society is better served too - by new companies creating technologies and solving problems that succeed or fail on their own merits; the group that is not better served by this is people who succeed through influence peddling and connections to other rich people.
Neither is easy to do
On one hand we have two founders that raised $160 million and spent nearly a decade trying to build a business.
On the other hand we have two founders who within a calendar week decided to raise money, did raise money, and made a successful bid for a company.
One of these things is not like the other. One of these things is actually hard. Sing it with me!
Agreed, and yet the OP "despises" this.