Exactly. $1.7M premoney valuation and a chance to get advice from PG and others who have helped 6 unicorns come about and, per @sama, 22 others who can get there is pretty darn good, IMO.
A third possibility is investors are lemmings and are too stupid to understand the unique insight you have into a big market.
As an investor who thought Instacart, Uber and BufferBox were really stupid ideas and missed a chance to invest in them (Uber through AngelList), I know this possibility is all too real. :)
This is basically what Warren Buffett does w/r/t Berkshire's portfolio cos. Though he invests less in frothy times and more in times of pessimism. But he's bottoms up too.
Folks already contributing hundreds of hours for free for some time.
I can't imagine someone doing free work and writing, ranking restaurant reviews, editing, citing, writing pieces of encyclopedia entrees or electing Presidents like in 2008.
Google News' strength is ranking, not summarizing facts from different sources so you can avoid reading all the top 5 or 20 articles about a story.
And, philosophically, do you HN folks really want to rely on the MSM to tell you what's important? And likes, shares and troll-ridden comments on news stories?
Or do you want a democratized way to decide, collectively, what news stories and facts are important.
Don't forget the NYT, etc. screwed up on no WMD's in Iraq.
I was at a small group dinner with Judith Miller, ex-NYT, who's nice but she messed up.