Coinbase is cruising at escape velocity. I signed up for an account around the time they launched. I had some questions about button creation so I emailed them. In response, Brian (the founder) coded up a button API to make it possible to generate payment buttons on the fly. Needless to say, the show of dedication was impressive. Congratulations to the Coinbase team.
So they will burn endless amounts of fuel (venture capital), rise high but deliver exponentially little, and promptly fall back to burn up in the atmosphere?
I would avoid any company "cruising _at_ escape velocity". Approaching it, fine, but at that specific velocity it's downhill from here.
For definitions here let's have Wikipedia[0] and Oxford dictionary[1]
0. "escape velocity is the speed at which the kinetic energy plus the gravitational potential energy of an object is zero. It is the speed needed to "break free" from the gravitational attraction of a massive body, without further propulsion."
1. "a speed for a particular vehicle, ship, or aircraft, usually somewhat below maximum, that is comfortable and economical"
An object travelling at escape velocity without further propulsion will just (only just) escape the gravitational pull of the contextual body. That means by the time it's distant enough from the body for the gravitational forces to be trivially weak, it's going damn slowly.
This means the company is slowing down continually, relative to that body.
In terms of whether you can "cruise" at escape velocity, I don't think so. Going at escape velocity for as much of the journey as possible would require a huge propulsion at the start, with a very high initial speed and use of fuel. I suggest cruising would actually be when you spend most of the journey below escape velocity by applying propulsion more steadily. The maximum velocity experienced in the company would be lower (comfort) and less fuel would be used.
The other downside of always being at escape velocity, unless the destination lies at a distance from the body where there's still a relatively non-trivial gravitational pull left, there's a good chance you'll die before you get there.
Seriously. I see more and more posts like this on HN. Someone uses a word or phrase in a sentence that is a tiny fraction of the actual content of their post, and someone replies with paragraphs (with references!) about why that phrase or word is not something they would choose based on something completely unrelated. Instantly derailing and detracting from discussing the actual points made. We need to start downvoting these kinds of posts.
