This aligns with Maslow's Hierarchy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs In other words, to reach a level where one pursues respect or self-actualization, one has to have their physiological and safety needs met first.
Degree of relative satisfaction. -- So far, our theoretical discussion may have given the impression that these five sets of needs are somehow in a step-wise, all-or-none relationships to each other. We have spoken in such terms as the following: "If one need is satisfied, then another emerges." This statement might give the false impression that a need must be satisfied 100 per cent before the next need emerges. In actual fact, most members of our society who are normal, are partially satisfied in all their basic needs and partially unsatisfied in all their basic needs at the same time.
Human needs arrange themselves in hierarchies of pre-potency. That is to say, the appearance of one need usually rests on the prior satisfaction of another, more pre-potent need. Man is a perpetually wanting animal. Also no need or drive can be treated as if it were isolated or discrete; every drive is related to the state of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of other drives.
In other words, starting a business isn't much different than it was in the past - capital and connections are essential. Sure, there're exceptions when someone with little money and hard work managed to grow their business, but they're that - exceptions. The older I am the more I realize how naive thinking "I just need to create something better than my competitors!" really is. You can have a mediocre product but with capital for heavy marketing and connections to acquire early customers you've much bigger chance of success than "just" having a good product.
Distribution is crucial, but I think pkorzeniewski was highlighting how marketing and networking can trump product quality, and his disillusionment with realizing how often this happens.
For many products distribution is correlated with marketing and networking, this isn't true for all products (e.g. web-apps).
Hmmm if your grandfather was successful in some significant way then your father benefited from that security which is exactly what the article is about. So claiming both were those exceptions is a bold claim indeed.
I think it's quite different in the software startup industry. You usually don't need much capital, it's more that you need to have a failsafe in case you go bust to not end up unemployed and unable to pay bills.
There are a million free or extremely cheap distribution channels on the internet. My current business with 7 figures ARR was launched almost exclusively on industry forums and there are no connections required to create an Adwords account. There are countless businesses that started on Reddit or even here on Hacker News with a $0 advertising budget.
It's a matter of effort/reward. Yes, you can advertise for free or very cheap on the Internet, but it's harder to achieve the same amount of success as if you were paying and requires you to put in more work, like engaging with the community (which is not trivial).
Of course it's possible to get extremely good ROI on free advertising (especially if your product is excellent or unique), but it's the exception, not the rule.
I was responding to the original claim that a distribution channel requires capital or connections, which from my own experience is a false statement.
You are right that free advertising requires work like engaging in the community, but all startups require a considerable amount of work, and if you have a little bit of online savviness engaging with a community is very easy.
I know that from the time I went from $0 to $10,000 MRR I spent about $100 in online advertising, and I know countless other businesses that have done the same. Maybe if your plan is to create the next Facebook it is harder, but if you have a high quality niche startup, being able to effectively and cheaply advertise yourself for free is hardly an exception. You can always broaden your scope later.
Networking is still invaluable, but capital isn't a necessity in software startups. I do think that either bravery or a nesting egg to fall back on is though.
It depends upon the market. You couldn't really do health-care software without connections or capital, for instance. Same for anything finance related.
Also, the markets that require the least capital/connections tend to be low margin and flooded with competition.
That is certainly true, but you can work the deal on parallel tracks. With the customer (say HSBCor MD Anderson) you spec what you are planning to build, to be installed/deployed in 4 chunks, every six months over two years. Call this a $20M project. Then you go to the investor and say that you need the funding to satisfy the contract.
Now, you usually would need to work this out in advance with the investor. After they've looked over your deal and poked at you some, tell them that you are going to go get a big customer with the permission to declare that funding is lined up pending contract.
It doesn't seem to take much more time out of your day than doing one after the other, and often the investor will get so distracted by the large pending customer that the due-diligence process becomes a pretty cursory check-box affair.
Jack Ma had neither when he started Alibaba. And whatever handicap not having connections is now in the west, it was a much larger one a decade ago in China.
Fair enough, but his job at the ministry of foreign trade was after he had made a (for the time) fortune with a different venture. His parents were traditional musicians, not powerful party members. He absolutely was not from a privileged or politically connected background.
You still need the capital to feed, clothe, and shelter yourself. If you don't have a hereditary source of wealth, you need to work for that, and if you don't have enough wealth to pay for the education necessary for a living-wage job, even working won't be enough.
Software is still made by people, and people have basic needs, and if you don't come from a family with sufficient wealth to support you, you have to work your way through.
In the USA, you have to do that in a nation that does not open doors for you based on birth, despite the myth the feudalist-owned media perpetuates. This is a feudalist society, the most feudalist society ever known to man (at least in the preserved history).
You've heard a Marxist slogan and thought it was timely huh?
Cause it's either evil monolithic collectivism or saintly and righteous fantasy individualistic libertarianism, those are the two options.
It's not like we can't recognize that most individual success is predicated on a healthy and functional society, one that is inclusive and takes care of its members, rather than one that caters solely to individuals fortunate enough to be born into families that have existing wealth.
(To hopefully avoid some arguments I should probably preface this with saying that I am 100% in favor of something like basic income.)
> The solution is providing a social safety net that enables that bulk of the population to pursue their dream.
I don't think that will make most people into successful businesspeople (let alone "entrepreneurs" in any non-facile sense of the word), and I don't think that was entirely the point the article was trying to make.
Even with basic needs supported, you still need capital to get a business off the ground "correctly". Unfortunately, in a basic income environment, I bet the people taking full advantage of it still wouldn't have access to that kind of capital.
I've had my own small business for several years now, but I'm looking for work again. The business has several promising irons in the fire, but I lack either the skill or resources to make any of them take off. Having access to basic income wouldn't substantially change my predicament; having access to good credit, capital, or talent would.
1. Contrary to justice or a sense of fairness
2. Contrary to laws or conventions, especially in commerce; unethical: unfair dealing and
3. Not kind or considerate.
>> The solution is providing a social safety net that enables that bulk of the population to pursue their dream.
> I don't think that will make most people into successful businesspeople (let alone "entrepreneurs" in any non-facile sense of the word), and I don't think that was entirely the point the article was trying to make.
I fully agree! While financial safety is by no means sufficient as a base for successfully starting a business, I do think the article makes a good point of it being necessary, though.
(And I think its important to emphasize that most businesses are not of the venture-backed startup type mostly discussed on this site.)
"Easier to be creative"? Of course. However it does not there is a correlation between having this social safety net vs creativity, or increased economic output, or willingness to take risks.
> The solution is providing a social safety net that enables that bulk of the population to pursue their dream.
We have a huge "social safety net" here in France and yet we are way less entrepreneurial than in the US. I moved to Peru for 4 years to save some money and then came back to start a business, the entrepreneurial spirit was way strong stronger there even though the social safety net is inexistent.
Fact is, having a social safety net makes people comfortable in their poor economic situation and does not require them to take risks. Even in the US, the number of new companies created each year has decreased as the welfare state has grown.
I moved to Peru for 4 years to save some money and then came back to start a business, the entrepreneurial spirit was way strong stronger there even though the social safety net is inexistent.
Indeed, the problem is more with the bureaucratic paperwork more than anything else, it takes 6 months to just have the legal paperwork to start a company there.
Peru might have a lot more entrepreneurially minded people, and more self-employed people but France certainly has more successful tech startups (even on a per capita basis).
Just as lack of a safety net biases towards action and self reliance, it also skews the risk/reward ratio of those actions firmly towards those most likely to keep the roof over ones head.
True, but then arguably education (and especially several years of heavily-subsidised tertiary education) is part of the safety net, and the safety net certainly contributes towards choice to pursue that education rather than accepting the first shitty informal sector opportunity that enables them to support themselves.
Obviously there are plenty of other social and economic differences between Peru and France, but the fact that even Peru's relatively small number of highly-educated people is still highly likely to be underemployed doesn't exactly speak wonders for the potential of all these entrepreneurially-minded Peruvians to actually create jobs.
Peru does have public education too so I don't think that's the issue. It's just that people are less educated in general so schools are not that good. South Korea has half of its schools private and they're doing great so I don't think you even need public schooling to be doing great as a country.
No, the conclusion is, people should stop just saying that anybody can do it, that all it takes is willingness to take chances, to dare to fail etc. These are important things, as the article also takes care to clarify, but if you fail to mention the importance of a safety net, or you fail to mention the fact that most entrepreneurs come from well-off backgrounds, then you're implying (probably unwillingly) that people who don't go into startups are simply lazy or cowards. While in reality there exists a pretty good reason why many might not dare to take the leap just yet.
It's basically giving people complexes. And it might be further exacerbated by the need we all have to ascribe our success exclusively to our own work, never to any external factors (luck, rich parents).
Ten years back, when I was fresh out of college, I joined a startup - not as a founder but as the first employee. A lot of it was driven by reading Paul Graham's essays, and I was naive and immature enough to believe that I was doing something great (as an aside, I came from an economically disadvantaged family; and every cent of my assets today is something I have earned and not something which I have inherited or obtained from anyone including my family). Two important things I learned from the experience -
1. The experience as an employee is completely different from being a founder; a lot of my friends have deluded themselves into believing that early employees enjoy as much benefits as the founders.
2. It is very hard to take risks when you are not financially secure; yes, I am pretty sure that there are counterexamples but I believe my statement is true on average.
Now after ten years mostly working in large companies, I have some savings which will allow me to last two years in case I lose my job. Also, I like to think that I have enough skills not to die of hunger if it happens. This has resulted in me being much more "entrepreneurial" and I am already working towards starting a company in the next two years.
TL, DR; On an average, it is much easier to start a start-up if you have some basic level of financial security in your life.
> It is very hard to take risks when you are not financially secure
There's a caveat here. It depends on your responsibilities. If you have children, fixed expenses, then absolutely.
If you have nothing to your name and no responsibilities, it's very easy to take risks without anything to fall back on. After all, you have very little to lose.
indeed. "Almost everything--all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure--these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked." - Steve Jobs
I'm guessing "and are prepared to live in a car/cardboard box". Yes it's do-able but the reality is that a founder does need to be able to have the funds to sprint, fail, and sprint again. It's why people bootstrap.
You can always lose your own life, pretty much. If you can go back to your old room at your parent's room while you find a job and start earning again, sure, it's easy to take risks (I've done it this way).
On the other hand, if you come from a rather poor background and have no one to fall back on, finding yourself with a failed company, in debt, maybe kicked out of your place because you can't pay rent, I'd say that rather terrifying.
I'm all for entrepreneurship, but if failing means living in the street, then let's just not start a company for now.
> in debt, maybe kicked out of your place because you can't pay rent, I'd say that rather terrifying.
There are two types of businesses out there. Those that make money from day 1 and simply need to be scaled up. Those that require substantial investment and time before you even make a penny.
For anyone who isn't financially secure, doing the latter is idiotic. There are plenty of business models that you can pursue that don't involve you ending up on the street. A business model where the worst-case scenario is that you wasted some time.
While it is true that you have profitable businesses from day 1 or almost, it still reduces your chances to be able to be an entrepreneur coming from the bottom. This article doesn't say it's impossible. Just that it's less likely/harder. That's a hard truth. You can build around all you want, there is no denying it.
That might (or might not) be true materially; but I would not ignore the psychological effects of growing up financially secure vs. not, and what it tends to do to your capacity to take financial risks specifically. If you don't even hardly know what it feels like to have no safety net at all, if you know you do have a safety net in the form of family that will help you out if things get _really_ bad, at least to keep you off the streets.... it's easier to take risks "without anything to fall back on." If, on the other hand, you know exactly what it really looks like to be at the bottom with truly nothing to fall back on...
true. there was an interesting text posted here once, about how one of the worse things about poverty is that it kills the will to dream big and make plans. when you're scraping by, it's much harder, and any big plan can easily fall through due to bad luck (some unexpected expenses you cannot cover eat up your small savings, e.g., and ironically, since poverty is not healthy, unexpected expenses are more likely).
> ironically, since poverty is not healthy, unexpected expenses are more likely
Well, that's mostly an US issue, I guess. When you live in a country with even modest public healthcare, such as Germany, things are not that terrible.
Here, if you get ill, no matter how bad, you get the base treatment that you need. Of course you can (and should) pay on top of that for better treatment. But event without money, you don't have to fear to be denied important treatments. (With some unfortunate, but luckily very rare exceptions.)
Thinking of that, I wonder why we Germans are so conservative, despite living relatively secure. A large portion of our people could take a lot of risk without falling too deep. Probably this is because "falling deep" here means to have to rely on social welfare provision, of which people are afraid of. But this is not really falling deep, compared to living on the street in utter poverty.
coincidentally, i live and work in Germany ;) immigrated from Croatia 2 years ago. and i agree, no doubt about it, the system is really functional here and provides a good safety net (although, welfare involves a bit of humiliation everywhere, the money is never just handed out...). from my kinda outsider perspective, Germans seem obsessed with doing the "right" thing. the word "ordentlich" came to mind ;) the culture is a bit conformist, not too much, but noticeably. so, many people play it safe, avoid going too far out on a limb. but i'm still processing the whole experience, and occasional culture shocks, so i don't stand too firmly behind these impressions.
I have spoken to a friend who has rich parents, and the psychological effect is that they always know if something goes wrong they can just be supported by their rich parents when they get back on their feet.
Furthermore they know they can bum around until their parents die and get their retirement money in the form of inheritance. You might be surprised how ever-present that thought is to people like that.
But for people without that option, because their parents can't, they make the right decision and don't take a risk because there is nothing to fall back on.
Even that varies based on your ability to find an alternative. If, say, you're a well-spoken geeky-looking white guy with a degree from a decent school, the worst-case scenario from a complete meltdown is something like “I took a job one cube over from Dilbert at <big corp> which has trouble keeping developers”.
The further you deviate from that (not fluent in the right language, from the wrong minority/gender, self-taught, etc.) the more reasonable it is to question how a failure will impact your ability to get jobs at your level or even stay in the field.
I have a very similar story, except I'm on part one. Recent graduate, very modest family, and drank all the Paul G koolaid which got me to jump into the whole scene just to realize I'm mostly surrounded by upper middle class types where there's still risk being taken just not nearly as much. This has taught me to always consider the source of advice more rigorously. I still think he's a great thinker, but some of the advice should come with a disclaimer.
I haven't been turned away from the tech startup world, but I'll be much more calculated if I'm ever to join another one. I also don't plan on staking my career purely in startups and am attracted to bootstrapped business now more than ever.
Agree. The risk of having to run back to mummy and daddy with their tail between their legs is no risk at all. I could be quite entrepreneurial if I didn't also have to pay for my apartment and food every month without fail.
But from a broader social standpoint, isn't it a good thing that people who can afford to take risks are the ones taking the risks? It sucks on an individual basis if you're living paycheck-to-paycheck and can't risk failure, but it's not such a bad thing that the affluent are taking larger economic risks than the poor.
It sorta spits at the idea of social mobility ("the american dream") though. The biggest rewards are only really available to those who can take risks like starting a business, and if you restrict that to only those who are already well-off, you remove most chances for the poor to ascend to the higher classes.
This implies that you believe that there is a global elite and there has always been a global elite and that they are all related and there is no way to become a part of that elite.
Because if you say that "if you restrict that to only those who are already well-off", their parents probably weren't or their parents' parents etc.
There are many occupations that really only require hard work and little risk that has big payout.
The end result here is that no, life isn't "fair". But by and large, a person that has the ability to take risk, does and succeeds will create that ability for others to do the same in the future.
This is why a social security net (ie. Welfare state) can actually be good for the economy. In fact, most western countries qualify as 'welfare states' when compared to 3rd world countries.
But this supports the whole idea of a basic income - if everyone is able to live without working, they can take risks such as going to University, starting a business, etc...
A lack of social net prevents risk taking and severly limits mobility, creating a 'have-not' class and keeping them there for the most part.
There isn't that much social mobility, there's plenty of statistics that prove that. The American dream is just that, a dream. Like most dreams, the odds are long. You can reduce those odds, but don't kid yourself that it will be easy.
Do you have those statistics? I'm not trying to be unreasonable. It's just that I've tried looking for this data before, and all I found was that social mobility (in the US) has remained relatively unchanged for about 50 years, and that's probably the best it's ever been.
I think we could do better, but I'm not sure what you are saying is correct, either.
There's a lot out there spinning the same result different ways; but I think that's the general status -- social mobility hasn't changed in the US for decades.
There's rather clearer data that the gap between rich & poor continues to widen in the US, which makes it a bit more bleak that going from poor to rich is still a rough uphill battle.
It's also fairly disheartening when you think of all the things that have changed in the past 50 years, many efforts that should help social mobility. Attempting to stop pervasive lead poisoning, lots of grants and policies to help get poor kids through basic and into higher education, legal and other sorts of efforts against sexism and racism... all kinds of things intended to hopefully make the playing ground more fair for everyone haven't actually moved this particular needle at all.
For a bit more context, also look outside of the US. If you want to live the American dream, you'll have a much better chance in Denmark. Reference here (though I read about it elsewhere a few years ago... can't remember orig src): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_the...
Of the 9 developed countries in that study, only the UK ranked worse than the US.
I would rather see the most able taking the risks, because they'll be the ones most likely to succeed, and we all benefit.
Assigning resources to the most able is, of course, an immensely difficult problem that nobody really knows how to solve. But it should be the goal, and I don't see affluence as a good substitute.
How many people are out there right now with the personal ability to change the world in some large beneficial way, but without the necessary finances? What are the rest of us missing out on because they're stuck working a 9-5 job to pay their rent, while some idiot with money is building Twitter for Cats and talking about how much of a risk taker he is because he's living off $50,000 in savings until the VC money comes in?
In an ideal world would be everyone would be free to take business risks, and customers would reward the ideas that offer a real benefit.
What we have now is a world where hardly anyone is free to take business risks, and the people who are tend to share the same political and social values.
Politically, that makes for caste perpetuation and monoculture - which is the exact opposite of the entrepreneurial mythology.
In some ways it's good, but in other ways it's worse. One noteworthy change in the last few years compared to say 10 to 20 years ago, most startups are either self-funded or funded through incubators of the already rich, unlike pre-2005 or so when regular investors had a chance getting in relatively close to the ground floor (let's ignore that most everyone lost their shirt!)
I think the negative of this is that most of the wealth created in the technology is going to remain in the pockets of those who are already rich and well connected.
I'm increasingly feeling like as our society becomes more technically advanced, it's almost inevitable that the vast majority of wealth is going to flow up to the top 10%.
You of course are right. Tail between legs is embarrassing but in the end you won't go hungry or homeless.
Problem is in popular culture there are also stories about the 1 out of 1000 guys (just like you) that essentially gambled and came out ahead. Let me say that again. Gambled and won. You hear those all of the time. What you don't hear is about the ones who lost or hit the skids as a result of those chances that they took. Or maybe you do (there are always counter stories floating about) but the shine of the winners typically totally blocks those out.
For example I am sure in response to this thread someone has already mentioned the type of family that Steve Jobs came from.
That's the big fallacy of capitalism. Nobody buy books about the guys who took a risk and lost everything, but everybody buys books about the One Guy who became millionaire after being a drop out.
What you call "popular culture", is just propaganda to make people believe that if they don't became rich is their own fault.
*this advice only applies to upper middle class white males based in Silicon Valley(or at least the US), who own trendy startups that have raised some VC funding
I know a lot of Blacks, Asians, and Women born into a lot more privilege than I, who exhibit the same behavior as those white male founders who sometimes get described as egotistical/ self absorbed/ "douchey".
I mean, are you trying to claim there are no upper middle class tech scensters who are Black, Asian, or Female? Or do they get a pass for acting exactly like the white male counterpart because they aren't white males?
The lesson from this is don't drink anyone's kool aid consciously. PG has a huge incentive to wax heroic about the "risk takers" "makers" and "founders"; it's the Silicon Valley cargo cult, and should be compensated against in the mind of the reader. Always be brutally critical of applying the question of qui bono-- always, no exceptions, ever.
PG has little incentive to explicitly qualify ideas that are his foundation (regarding the prerequisites for the above), and frankly it'd kind of break up the nice flow his pieces have anyway if he did. His target audience doesn't want to be told that they started life on second base, and honestly it's quite annoying to have someone tell you so with the intention of taking you down a peg.
But claiming someone has privilege isn't a value judgement on the person, or a sin. Its not claiming they did anything wrong, or that its their fault. I'm not sure why people are so offended when others point out their privilege. Saying someone has privilege is just pointing out the state of the world, it isn't a judgment.
People without food allergies have privilege in that they don't have to constantly worry whether what they eat will kill them. The people with privilege often just don't have to think about or deal with stuff that those without do.
> Saying someone has privilege is just pointing out the state of the world, it isn't a judgment.
It could, in principle, be just a claim about the state of the world; in practice, its quite often an ad hominem to dismiss a position they've taken, and often its that with a side of implicit moral judgement that the position is not only invalid because of the claimed privilege, but also that it is maliciously offered as a defense of that privilege at the expense of the unprivileged.
That's not to say that privilege doesn't exist (it does), or that it doesn't at times blind people to others' experiences (it does), or that it doesn't at times lead to people, consciously or not, defending it at the expense of the unprivileged (it does that, too!)
But to pretend that claims of privilege are non-judgemental is ignoring how they are actually used in practice.
>But claiming someone has privilege isn't a value judgement on the person, or a sin...Saying someone has privilege is just pointing out the state of the world, it isn't a judgment.
That is exactly the same argument that bigots use when they talk about {minorities, poor people, immigrants, LGBT people}. "That person fits into category X, and everyone in category X shares some characteristic Y because they're in that category. I'm just saying that because it's true!" It doesn't matter who that generalization is made about, whether they're the dominant group in society or not. It's still a terrible generalization and an intellectually lazy argument and in and of itself carries a judgement. If you grant that something like "white privilege" or "male privilege" exists (and most people that buy into the concept do) then by that logic a homeless, illiterate white man has more privilege than a black woman millionaire CEO.
>People without food allergies have privilege in that they don't have to constantly worry whether what they eat will kill them.
That's absolute nonsense as well. There exist people without food allergies that have other conditions where they constantly have to worry about what they eat, diabetes being an example. So check your cis-gylcemic privilege you fascist!/s Do you see how ridiculous and divisive that sounds?
"PG has a huge incentive to wax heroic about the "risk takers" "makers" and "founders""
To be sure (in the spirt of NY Times "to be sure" statements) [1] PG (who went to Harvard of course as everyone knows) and others always point out the obligatory risks but tend to do so in a way that I think most people perhaps ignore. More or less a "sure it's risky but" as opposed to "you'd be foolish however there's always a small small chance that..."
[1] That is where they (and others in the media) counter something they are saying with the other point of view typically buried 3 quarters down the page as a qualifier.
"I did make a bunch of money by winning the Netscape Startup Lottery, it's true. So did most of the early engineers. But the people who made 100x as much as the engineers did? I can tell you for a fact that none of them slept under their desk. If you look at a list of financially successful people from the software industry, I'll bet you get a very different view of what kind of sleep habits and office hours are successful than the one presented here."
From a disadvantaged family (no initial savings) and perhaps student loans (ill-advised, but not uncommon) -- it's not unthinkable that he hasn't hit "soft retire" numbers after 10 years.
But your sentiment is correct: If you're debt-free, you should be able to "soft retire" after 10 years as a software engineer in today's markets.
Build a sufficiently large investment portfolio such that annual income from investments approximately equals annual expenses. Note that this may require moving to an area with lower cost of living (eg. working in SFBA for 10 years and then moving to the midwest).
The approximate rule of thumb (not accounting for investment variability, so be careful!) is that you can extract 4% of your investments annually without affecting the basis (while adjusting it for inflation). So if you can live off that 4% (ie. $40k off a $1M investment portfolio), then you can "soft retire."
Another thing to factor in is being from a lower income area will distort your perception of what a large number is. I come from a town where the per capita income is 20k. My first "real" job was doing tech support at $16/hr. It felt like A LOT of money to me. I thought I was getting overpaid, that sentiment followed me for years. Today making 125k I still feel overpaid, though when I look at the value I produce for the company, and the numbers of my peers I know it's not. It took me many years to get to 125k because each step up the ladder felt pretty big to me even though it probably wasn't compared to my peers.
Pay is very relative. I look at my old high school buddies, they range from 25k-40k. The first time I asked for 100k, I thought it was craziness. Like no human being deserves that amount of money. So it took me several years to build up to that number.
I can completely relate to this. Doing a practice interview with a career counselor we got to the part about negotiating pay. I said I had no idea how to do this. She said ask for 70k as a junior developer. I told her that, that felt like saying "I'll be needing all the money in the world please."
OK, but how many developers in the US get $100k? Throughout the first 10 years of their career?
And I'm sorry, I should explain - I live and work in the EU, in Germany right now. So I can't compare. In any case, one can certainly save, and I'm not gonna lie, I could certainly spend less without losing too much :) But a claim like "10 years is enough to retire" seems a bit extreme.
well, a full answer to the question would also need the percentage of college graduates that land jobs in big companies in the valley...
P.S. I don't think we'll get far with this... i just noticed, e.g., "median household income in the US" - that seems a tricky thing to compare with, given that many ppl in the US don't have health insurance, or live in trailer parks eating off food stamps...
I think almost all my (upper-year) classmates got offers to at least one of Amazon/Microsoft/Google/Facebook/Twitter/Palantir/Uber. And I went to a school in Canada that nobody's ever heard of (University of Waterloo).
> And I went to a school in Canada that nobody's ever heard of (University of Waterloo).
Erm, that's well-known as an excellent school. Top-tier, really. My only qualms about inviting in a Waterloo man for an interview would be that our work might not be interesting enough.
From across the pond, I can tell you we do have heard of you.
I don't follow the Shangai listings (because to me they are kinda pointless) but if pressed to list canadian universities, University of Waterloo would definitely be there....
Outside tech circles most people give me a blank stare or ask me if it's in England or in Belgium. It's certainly not an Ivy League school where my rich parents dropped $200k to ensure my spot in the upper class, like some of these commenters claim.
For sure. Why you're getting my response, and others like it, is because well, this is a tech circle and we're talking about tech jobs, so in this context, it's certainly nowhere close to being a school no one has heard of.
edit: Your original comment (paraphrased) was, 'I go to this school no one's heard of, but my classmate get offers to <top-tier tech companies>', but the reality of this is that all of these top-tier tech companies are without a doubt quite aware of Waterloo and it's quality. The same can't be said for, what, I don't know, Cleveland State University.
SV salary levels are not the norm across the industry. Furthermore, these high salaries in places like SV are often displaced by the extreme cost of living.
Which brings us full circle back to the topic of the article such that its only children of rich parents who graduated from ivies, white "1% rock star programmer" males only, then you don't need the easy cash anyway.
You can consistently get $100k in Silicon Valley, New York City, and Washington DC Metro, although you will need Top Secret security clearance for the latter.
It should come as no surprise that the expenses in those areas are much higher. If you settle for a lower salary in an area with lower living expenses, your effective savings rate could be higher.
Also, you don't want those DC jobs. Just say no. The military industrial complex is a soul-eating machine, and it does not respect software professionals.
The problem is that other places have fewer available jobs in the field, and a greater proportion of them are extremely unglamorous. $90k maintaining a stupid, business-line CRUD app may be less attractive than $80k making custom software for medical researchers.
I saved over 80% of my take-home pay when I lived in SF. The rent is expensive, yes, but everything else is cheap and at most jobs you get free food and entertainment.
.... what planet do you live on? That certainly isn't the case for the vast majority of developers, even if their lifestyle involves a studio apartment and ramen noodles.
GDP per capita in Vietnam is $2k. I think you're overestimating how much it costs to retire. Even $500k would be enough that you'd never touch the principle.
I think you're underestimating the social cost of moving halfway around the world to a place where you aren't familiar with the culture or language or people.
If you're single and socially unattached, your proposition is viable. But you can't readily expect someone's SO and/or children to be as willing to cut ties with their home. And if you have a solid group of friends, that's a big thing to give up and to try and rebuild in a foreign land without the benefit of common language and culture.
I am from a third world country myself :) and have always earned in the country's currency. And even though I did start working as a software engineer in the startup I mentioned, I did not eventually continue in the field and do statistical modelling for a living (which pays much more than the average software engineer here).
Your description of being an employee resonates with me, and thank you for giving some insight into how you've approached your career and what you see in the future. Though I came from a financially supportive environment, I was (wisely) cautioned against being a risk-taker with my career due to medical issues that I can't afford to manage without good company sponsored health insurance. My parents urged me to get good skills so that I could be a valuable employee, obtain a nice standard of living, and have some security in the sense that if I had to change jobs, then I would have skills and a good background in order to get hired and retained.
Here's where the correlative kicks in: I always wanted to be a full-time musician, and I still do...but I view success in music a lot like being involved with a start-up. There's the product/service angle (quality and innovation matter, unless they don't), the investor relationship (labels), the marketing budget, and absolutely no guarantees of success. Actually, it's an offhand joke, but being a full-time musician writing originals (e.g. not in a wedding/corporate party cover band) is a lot like choosing poverty up front for a potential windfall later.
Being an employee has been a choice, and one that I'm glad to have made because with patience and investing in myself, I've been able to acquire lots of equipment and spent hundreds - if not thousands - of hours playing, writing and recording music. Because I didn't seek out the 'traditional' channel of label investment and signing away certain rights, I've been able to build a library of my own content which I consider like a savings of sorts. Maybe it's a worthless legacy in dollar terms, or maybe when an opportunity finally arises to do some business with my material, I won't be caught empty handed. The trade-off in security and health isn't glamorous, but it's certainly something I'm proud of choosing and accomplishing thus far.
TL,DR; If your goal is to get a Nolan Ryan rookie card and the guy won't trade it unless you offer the entire roster of the 1989 Oakland As Championship team in trade, then get to work building up what you need to get what you want.
> TL, DR; On an average, it is much easier to start a start-up if you have some basic level of financial security in your life.
I didn't realize this was some secret. Someone who has parents who are doing well and can pay for their college and living expenses indefinitely will be at an advantage. They can take risks others can't.
BTW, this is true from the time someone is born. Parents who are well off will send their child to pre-pre schools, pay for the best elementary, middle and high schools. Then their child gets to go to college, likely loan free, and can focus on college and not working to pay the bills. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this, and I certainly didn't grow up this way. I'm surprised it wasn't common sense.
yes, it is common sense and everyone indeed knows it. But many want to believe in SV as some not rest of the world place with equal opportunities for everyone, just be smart. We all want it to be ruled by meritocracy. That's why we keep drinking this koolaid.
Life isn't fair, especially when it comes to economics. Whenever you think you've found some sector of industry that is more egalitarian, you've probably either stumbled into something where you haven't identified the advantaged and disadvantaged parties (it's easier to miss when you are part of the advantaged group), or the current social context makes it easier to hide. That said, there are lots of very different industries, and one of them probably advantages you in some way if you can find it.
To be honest, I only want to be ruled my a meritocracy if I can define myself as the most intelligent person in the world. (Or, in the upper 10% or something). A true meritocracy scares me. And this from a guy who was in the upper 10% of my high school (upper 4%). But I've seen much more brilliant people out there.
So who honestly wants a meritocracy either?
Another option would be that whoever works hard is taken care of. That sounds like the 1950s corporate job with a pension. It may be less exciting and sounds like it would produce less motive for innovation, but it is also less scary and a bit more fair than rewards to the affluent risk takers.
I have no idea how to get the best of all systems. So I make do in this one. I'm just pointing out that no system (known to man) is perfect.
I'd be frightened to see the world run by people like me, but I'd love to see the world run by the best of the best, as long as we can somehow select for morality as well as intelligence.
It is a bit of koolaid, but I believe we are closer to a meritocracy than we ever have been. Some people will always have it easier, but in software the capital cost to start a company has approached zero. What's left is time, and that is the main thing my post tried to hone in on.
"I believe we are closer to a meritocracy than we ever have been"
While it has always been true that the strongest factor in a successful life is rich parents, I understand that it is more true today in the US than it has been for the last fifty years. That would suggest that we are further from a meritocracy than we were, and moving away from it.
I don't agree with the money angle. What is hurting the US isn't money, but the complete break down of the family structure. And no, I'm not talking about the religious 1 man 1 woman family, but the 2 parent family. Kids need discipline and someone to guide them to make good choices early on. I don't see that as much anymore and you get to where we are today.
I grew up without much of anything. Neither parent finished college and both worked all the time. Yet somehow they drilled into me hard work, education, and don't get a girl pregnant while in high school. I am by no means rich, but have done much better than my parents.
TL, DR; It is much easier to do X if you have some basic level of financial security in your life.
Same goes for education. "Rich" people can pursue and education in terms of opportunity costs. Some kids I went to HS with had to work part time to support their own families, having less time to invest in their education ... really sad story.
In this specific case,
1. Very low salary - just enough to afford housing and food.
2. No equity - though the founders promised that I would get some later (yeah, I know I was an idiot).
3. Working 12 hour days including Saturdays.
The founders were quite rich and they were of course passionate about their own company because of which they worked even more than me, but I could never feel the same enthusiasm. Interestingly, both of them had worked for larger companies, studied in and traveled to various countries for work which gave me the idea that perhaps it is better to be in a start-up once I have experienced what they have.
The difference is that today you can build a side project on the side while working in a company and hopefully build something up that way. This wasn't possible 20 years ago in the same way.
Thirty-five years back, I went to work as the fourth person in a start-up (that's still in business) and loved the fast-paced environment of a start-up life. Fifteen years ago, I went to work for "BigCo", and while our group was essentially an internally funded start-up, I hated the politics, especially as we acquired other companies and tried to integrate their software products into ours.
The good news is that succeeding at three of the four start-ups left me with enough stock options to fund (my share) of my next start-up with cash. While it's looking like I may not see a return on that investment, the product was certainly something the industry needs/needed. As a small boot-strapped company, it's almost impossible to move an industry.
I'm currently working at a university and we've tailored the culture within our group to be much like you'd find in a start-up (the political machinations of a university can however be brutal). In any case, I think I have a couple more ideas that could be turned into start-ups and enough working years left to build a couple more start-ups. I can't think of anything that's more fun.
In contrast to you, I came from an upper-middle class family with a stay-at-home mom and a go-to-work dad. Things were comfortable when I was at home but I'd have never asked any of my relatives for money to create a start-up and my parents were far more risk averse than I (originally they mildly disapproved of the risks I was taking but seem to have realized I always "left myself an out" so that in the worst possible outcome, I could take care of my wife and kids).
So it might be true that most kids these days have the money to be entrepreneurs, I say it was definitely in my genes. (As an aside, in the '80s I think most of the start-ups I saw were people who were risking almost everything to get started because they had a vision - it's much easier to fail if there are no consequences).
They think money solves every problem, completely ignoring family stability, risk assessment by family members, advice, a roof over your head, more daylight hours since chores are split up between family members, sanity, etc.
I didn't mean to imply I didn't have advantages ... just being born where I was was a tremendous advantage. On the other hand, I wasn't a legacy dumped into an Ivy League college, I wasn't handed a trust fund or even enough money to even live for a month.
My parents wanted me to follow the "safe path", to be the '50s style company man who would work his 40 years and retire with a good pension. They wouldn't endorse the life I ended up living. I was however encouraged to be curious and the "hack". That was an amazing gift and I am in fact grateful for my privileged upbringing - I'm just not tanned from laying on the beach at the Hamptons.
Absolutely. What I think some stating that this is all "common sense" miss is that for many people it's NOT. All the advantages some have are advantages they believe that others have. Couldn't go to university because you had to work? Why didn't your parents help you? What? Nowhere to live? What about your old bedroom? You've supported yourself since you were a teenager? Where were your parents! No money left? Huh? No trust or college fund? Not even a savings account that your parents set up for you? What about your credit card? You're afraid to start a business / go into debt / try to "work your way" through college? Why, if you fail you can just move in with your family! Why not get some "friends and family" investors? The list of these tacit assumptions, and by extension that you're just a fool or lazy because you didn't do those things (supported ideologically in this country by all the Just World Fallacy nonsense) is far more widespread than one may think.
It's really amazing just how many people cannot even fathom that others do not have the familial safety net and have been working to support themselves from an age where said people were just starting to think about what school to go to. For many, until they've lived on the razor's edge, they simply do not have the mental framework for understanding what living that way does to people.
Edit: I'd also add that for those of us who have seen the other side (I was upper middle class from 0-9 years old, fell into poverty after and lived that way until my early 20s - riches to rags sucks. Badly. Read all about it here if you're curious: https://medium.com/@opirmusic/why-software-developers-should...) we know what the other side is like. We've seen it. We know what it's like to never worry about transportation, decent food, school supplies, books, tutors, spending money - and the ever-present implicit safety net. We saw our parents' friends go on vacations, buy multiple cars, live in huge houses, etc. So anyone, anyone who says it isn't a huge advantage is delusional or lying.
A million times yes. This is a common mistake of managers/older people assuming younger/inexperienced folks are dumb from their mistakes and lack of experience. The latter need patience and some guidance for the former to grow their "common sense" to become more capable/productive/successful.
The other antipattern is spoiling kids and helicopter parenting, which leads to sheltered/learned-helplessness kids. Letting kids struggle more to learn for themselves and earn things is important because the role of the parent to prepare people to become independent, survive and thrive. Also, expecting them to do more with much less improves their ingenuity out of necessity. People/startups that are broke can often attain what others cannot because they are able to make something awesome out of what other people call "junk" and waste less money.
The world isn't fair or just. But we all control our attitude and our decisions. Some attitudes and decisions get you a house and food. Some do not.
Speaking as somebody who's been there, I'm really concerned with this "poor changes your mind" thing I'm seeing. Buddhists manage to live and be happy not having much at all. For the vast majority of history, great men lived in conditions much worse than the average poor person in the western world does.
I agree that many rich people do not understand poor people. Likewise, many poor people do not understand rich people. But when people say things like "So your startup doesn't work out, why don't you just go live with family", they are not simply showing that they don't understand your situation. They're trying to point out: what's the worse that could happen? I've been homeless, I've lost everything I've owned. You go through a lot of crap an either you sit in the corner feeling sorry for yourself or you start thinking "So I could lose the house? It's not the end of the world." Doesn't mean I'd do it lightly, but I am in control and I have the power to make that decision.
I really don't care who has a private jet or has never worried about food or shelter. Moreso, I find worrying about those things is a good sign my head is in the wrong place for actually making me a better person.
That's great that you had the mental fortitude to make it through that. For many, being broke and homeless is the very bottom and is psyche-destroying (people are so afraid of it, we even have a phenomenon named for it - Last Place Aversion: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/occupy-wall-street...) You may not like the poor changes your mind thing, and why would anyone? That doesn't make it wrong. For example:
I'm also referring to the incredible narrowing of choices that you're left with (this one I've experienced first-hand, and by a read of these comments many here have experienced it as well), which you are surely well aware of. Don't let "what you don't like" or "what should/should not be" dictate your interpretation of the reality. I don't like that stuff either, but I'm not going to deny its real effects. It's not only callous, it's not correct.
The article's assertion is simply that people with a safety net have a reduced risk. Marginal reduction in risk increases entrepreneurship.
There's probably also a marginal reduction in reward, as the reward of entrepreneurial success for the poverty-stricken would include safe housing, food, education for children, etc., which the wealthy already have, but it seems we have no problems desiring to spend more than we currently have.
Friends! If you find someone trying to criticize your achievement as being "just because you are privileged" say
"I'm now further from where I started, than where I started was from where you started. So if you couldn't even make it from where you started to where I started, how do you expect that you could have made it from where I started to where I am now?"
People may choose to respond to this by saying something that confirms their idea that they are fundamentally more worse off than you. They may call you privilege blind. They may say it is easier if they had X more capital. The may say anything that confirms their hypothesis that without having whatever they credit you with possessing, they are less capable.
I implore you, be not discouraged, nor believe your success any the lesser. Recognize that they are disempowering themselves and, that by believing that success is something that must be given to them rather than something they create, they are acting privileged and entitled, the very things they are trying to say you are. Recognize and, if you like, benevolently point out, that this chosen self-disempowerment, this unworkable attitude, is a poverty of the spirit that will disadvantage them ( by their own choice ) far more than any difference between how much they started with, and how much you did.
For if at every step of the way, people are looking to those who have more than them and, "proving" to themselves that this difference was all about different starting points rather than about a different sequence of choices, then such people are disempowering the power of choice, and, how likely do you feel such people will be, to ever make a string of choices that leads to success?
No, friends, heed not their admonishments, and keep your children away from their siren songs, for they are only the delusional whispers of a people soothing themselves into apathy by telling themselves they never coulda, instead of believing that they fully could have, had they only chosen to take responsibility for success, instead of deluding themselves that it was owed to them.
To put it in more general terms : Being a fake victim doesn't work, you just disempower yourself. When you see people better of than you, choosing to be inspired and to acknowledge their achievements works. Choosing to pretend to yourself that success is something that must be given to you, instead of something you create yourself, is just acting privileged and entitled, and it doesn't work and it actually, this attitude, makes it less likely for you to succeed. An attitude that acknowledge the choices that lead to success, and that takes responsibility yourself to create your own success through your own choices, this attitude works, and makes it more likely for you to succeed. Anything else, any stories you choose to tell yourself about how it's so unfair, is just you choosing to substitute the fake payoff of feeling like a righteous fake victim of unfairness, for the real payoff of actually creating results.
Trying to spread to others the claptrap that people are powerless, so you can confirm your own delusions that they are, is just incorrectly trying to disempower others, and it's just wrong.
TL;DR -- Deluding yourself that success is given, rather than created, is not an attitude that works to help you create your own success.
I hope this cleared some things up for some people. Those too far gone in excusing themselves a lack of success due to a fantasy of disadvantage may or may not be beyond the reach of such simple words, and I hope they can be reached. For everyone else I have even more hope.
Yet there's a fundamental difference between "Having just enough for rent" and "Having just enough to start a company". There's something impoverishing to the spirit when you spend your last $5 and its still 1 week to payday. Its often not a choice to feel that way; its disingenuous to say "You could just invest like I did!"
So go out and make another $5. How you expect to make a 1MM if you can't even make $5. Thank you for reading it, and also stop making excuses. Everyone one else commenting please refer to this comment, thanks.
An entrepreneur at the end of their runway, facing the extinction of something they fought and struggled over, experiences depression, anxiety and regret. And gets sympathy for their plight.
A person who's life is made up of 'being at the end of their runway' is shamed for not just 'go out and make another $5'. Nothing disingenuous about this dichotomy?
A person's life is their responsibility. The only thing disingenuous is believing that is not so. A person brings shame upon themselves when they blame others for lack, instead of choosing to create for themselves.
Your fancy words conceal an illogicality of thought. Clear your thought, before you clothe it in fancy words, otherwise you get confused. Stopping making excuses and tolerating that from others, is the way of genuine concern for helping others improve.
Believing differently is your choice, and it won't work. Think more before you write more.
Drag your mouse over it with button depressed - the selected text will be inverted to readable colours. (If you don't mind to change your colour settings.)
> "I'm now further from where I started, than where I started was from where you started. So if you couldn't even make it from where you started to where I started, how do you expect that you could have made it from where I started to where I am now?"
That is so ridiculously built on false premises that I don't even know where to start. But for starters, you are assuming that the 'effort' (since that's all you think it takes) to get from, say $10K to $100K, is exactly equivalent to the effort to get from $100K to $190K, or whatever. Unlikely to be true.
If you're a real victim, then you have encountered a force unreasonable to overcome on your own, or you've been the victim of a crime, or both, and then it works to have help from something more powerful, like the Law, or the State. And if the State has made you a real victim? Go to another state.
And if there is no higher force to help you -- spiritual victory is one possibility: "Your life is what your thoughts make of it."
You might mean what you say so I'll just point out that your comment seems to be a bit obscure and doesn't really make it seem like you've read the article.
Exact same thing I've felt. I've met a number of founders and while there are definitely the ones who had nothing but smarts and a strong degree, the majority had this idea that if things don't work out, there's family to back them up.
After teenage angst, came a time of value/family fallout for me. At one point, I haven't even been face to face with any of them for a period of almost 2 years. Not that anything was particulary wrong with anyone, mind you. After 100+ hour workweeks slaving for someone else, ending up in ER several times (but still showing up 8AM sharp day afterward), finally burning out, quitting job, breaking up, and living in windowless installation-free underground solid-cement garage for better part of year (life's paraphernalia funded entirely by sale of single iPhone), I've come home.
I cannot even describe what sort of relief I felt having my meals provided for, laundry taken care of, having bed to sleep in, someone to talk to, help to, care for... That was when I figured, given this bare essentials provided by family, I have basically nothing to lose by taking much more risks in life and working on what I care about. I like to think I've instilled that appreciation to my siblings, as well as parents.
Three months after that, I've found investors, moved to freeload in one of their penthouses, while I work in a high-risk field of game development. We'll see how that turns out, but I have no fear - I have family to fall back on.
---
I'm aware not everyone has what I have with my family, but I'm certain many more do not appreciate what they already have.
It took me a couple of years after college working in restaurants etc before I had the skills to pat the bills. The only way I could afford the time to teach myself code was due to the relaxed schedule that comes from knowing you can ask your parents for help.
Learn some empathy for people who, unlike you, were not born on second base. Wages have stagnated for working class people for decades. People are having to work two jobs to make ends meet. Are you honestly suggesting that these people are lazy or "making excuses"?
This is what I've been saying. The ability to quit college or stay with a startup long enough until it starts succeeding, or better yet, borrowing money to pay off those loans you took on while believing deeply in your startup, depends on being able to ask your parents for money while things are going not-so-good.
If the middle class didn't lose so much of its income on taxes, it would be a lot easier to save money for them to start businesses. The tighter you get squeezed, the longer it takes to save money and the more the actual risk increases based on sheer time value.
The unfortunate result of that is that in order to start a business that requires more than an investment of spare time and professional skill (programming or a service based business) everything else is left to the mercy of investors.
Entrepreneurs in other industries may need family money. Software Entrepreneurs can use their own.
Working in an industry where $120k/year is considered a starting salary, and where you know for a certainty that you are roughly one Twitter post away from having your pick of three companies that will fight to get you, you can feel free to pursue any goofy idea you like without fearing much for your financial safety should things go wrong.
Yet another reason this is the best industry to be in right now.
Not sure about the twitter post thing... but any industry that has constant demand for good workers and high wages would be conducive to this by eliminating a lot of the monetary risk of failure.
It's a shame we see so much denial about this. The rational response when shown that you are dramatically underpaid should be to take steps to get one's self back up to the level of the market. Sadly, the more common response is to call whoever filled you in a liar.
I've noticed this happening a lot in the last few years, as developer salaries have skyrocketed but guys who had secured jobs before that still quote 2005 numbers as though they were the case today.
You don't need to be in Silicon Valley to make six figures as a developer. Taking that on board rather than rejecting it offhand can only lead you to a better place.
You initially mentioned starting salary, now you are just mentioning 6 figure developer salaries in general. Again, $120k starting salary for your average junior developer fresh out of college isn't a reality outside of places like SV.
Apologies if I wasn't clear. By six figure developer salary, I meant more like $250k. That is in fact achievable as a mid to senior level developer working remotely.
A kid from a good school capable of working for a Facebook or Google would be we'll served by holding out for that unrealistic Bay Area starting salary. It's not as unrealistic as you believe.
> one Twitter post away from having your pick of three companies
Can't concur on that one. I've been looking for more than a year for a job after graduation and getting through those interviews was hard. But maybe it's different here in Europe.
Since no one else is calling it out, I will - This article starts with a radical statement, but when you read it, it seems to be essentially an opinion piece with a couple of studies hand picked to support its claim. That's not very scientific at all. Which is a pity, since I suspect the claim has some truth to it.
This is just common sense but amazingly this bit of common sense is ignored in the valley. Probably because too many want to believe in the dream that the successful were "just smart enough" or "just risky enough" when the majority were simply able to gamble with minimal risk.
You don't need to be from a rich family to do these things.
Of course not. Who said so? The point is that coming from wealth increases the odds that you'll end up being the type of person who will follow that program. It's not simply about having the capital; it's what coming from a place where security is guaranteed does to your psyche.
Well, it should be noted that "rich" is something of a relative term. For many people, being able to take a risk and forgo income for a time is, indeed, to be rich.
"Step 1: Spend less than you make...You don't need to be from a rich family to do these things."
Uh, in the USA 2015, you do. Or you need to be a very lucky lottery winner. Living-wage jobs are not available to all, and you need a modicum of education to secure one.
Having a moderately wealthy family increases the speed at which #2 will come, if it comes at all. Someone who's working two jobs to make ends meet is likely never going to be able to get to #2.
Every third world country I have been too is filled with entrepreneurs hustling to make a buck. Having money helps with big scale business; having no money means you are buying a bag of oranges and selling them off individually on the street corner.
I do not come from a family with money. I grew up below the poverty line in fact. This article is crap. It is like saying "Entrepreneurs are all white males" because a lot of entrepreneurs are - but it marginalizes all the people, the many many people, who have succeeded as entrepreneurs despite starting from a very small seed (and who weren't white males of privilege).
I have a company because I couldn't imagine working for someone else. I have tried a couple times for a few months, but in the end I can't do it. So I work for myself, and have for 25 years. I start companies because I can't not do it. I have too many ideas, and I want to see if they work so I do little experiments that sometimes turn into viable projects.
While I agree I can't take on Tesla unless I had a spare billion laying around, that ignores that there are lots of businesses that can be started for a few dollars. This article ignores all of those business too. Not every business has to be the next Uber.
I'm not sure this article is trying to down play successful ventures from non-stereotypical entrepreneurs but it's making the argument that that the image of the bold, risk taking entrepreneur might not be so accurate in the sense that that aren't really risking that much.
It doesn't say that all successful entrepreneurs are white, male and privileged. It just says that a lot of them are and that the largest indicator was being white, male and privileged.
This comic does an excellent job of summing it up:
I understand this issue perfectly. In the referenced comic strip, I am Paula on the right and my children are on the left side.
What is left out in that strip, is that because of the way I grew up, I am left with a drive to accomplish things that I simply do not see in my own children. The hunger, the drive, the ambition are all from a crappy childhood. The drive is where my success came from, it is what gets me off the floor when life knocks me down. It is the drive that provides the "I refuse to lose" mentality.
I don't claim that this drive is all good. A lot of times I think it makes me a little obsessive and crazy in my need to succeed and reduces the number of days I relax.
Of course it's true that people with access to capital can afford to be more risky than people who don't. But the majority of the "rich" aren't entrepreneurial and there are plenty of the "poor" who are. There is more to the average entrepreneurial story than simply privilege.
I mostly agree with the article in that at some point you must gain access to capital in either cash or credit and then put it at risk. That said, I was born in WV to 17-year-old mother and 20-year-old father. I was their second child. My father was a coal truck driver, mother a secretary, neither college educated. By the time I was four, my father was in prison two years, and my mother was a struggling 21-year-old with two kids and no family support. Anyhow, I worked my way up from that start, became a bootstrapped entrepreneur in 30's after raising $15K seed, no salary for two years, bought back my seed equity, now a millionaire net worth by 40. If sufficiently hard-headed, stubborn, and unwilling to quit trying to find any way to succeed, it can be done without family money.
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 266 ms ] threadThis aligns with Maslow's Hierarchy - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow's_hierarchy_of_needs In other words, to reach a level where one pursues respect or self-actualization, one has to have their physiological and safety needs met first.
http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Maslow/motivation.htm
Degree of relative satisfaction. -- So far, our theoretical discussion may have given the impression that these five sets of needs are somehow in a step-wise, all-or-none relationships to each other. We have spoken in such terms as the following: "If one need is satisfied, then another emerges." This statement might give the false impression that a need must be satisfied 100 per cent before the next need emerges. In actual fact, most members of our society who are normal, are partially satisfied in all their basic needs and partially unsatisfied in all their basic needs at the same time.
Human needs arrange themselves in hierarchies of pre-potency. That is to say, the appearance of one need usually rests on the prior satisfaction of another, more pre-potent need. Man is a perpetually wanting animal. Also no need or drive can be treated as if it were isolated or discrete; every drive is related to the state of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of other drives.
For many products distribution is correlated with marketing and networking, this isn't true for all products (e.g. web-apps).
My grandfather (and father) were that person.
You still need a distribution channel. That requires either capital or connections.
Just putting something up on the Internet and hoping will get you nowhere.
Of course it's possible to get extremely good ROI on free advertising (especially if your product is excellent or unique), but it's the exception, not the rule.
You are right that free advertising requires work like engaging in the community, but all startups require a considerable amount of work, and if you have a little bit of online savviness engaging with a community is very easy.
I know that from the time I went from $0 to $10,000 MRR I spent about $100 in online advertising, and I know countless other businesses that have done the same. Maybe if your plan is to create the next Facebook it is harder, but if you have a high quality niche startup, being able to effectively and cheaply advertise yourself for free is hardly an exception. You can always broaden your scope later.
Also, the markets that require the least capital/connections tend to be low margin and flooded with competition.
Now, you usually would need to work this out in advance with the investor. After they've looked over your deal and poked at you some, tell them that you are going to go get a big customer with the permission to declare that funding is lined up pending contract.
It doesn't seem to take much more time out of your day than doing one after the other, and often the investor will get so distracted by the large pending customer that the due-diligence process becomes a pretty cursory check-box affair.
Software is still made by people, and people have basic needs, and if you don't come from a family with sufficient wealth to support you, you have to work your way through.
In the USA, you have to do that in a nation that does not open doors for you based on birth, despite the myth the feudalist-owned media perpetuates. This is a feudalist society, the most feudalist society ever known to man (at least in the preserved history).
Cool. Know your place, leave enterpreneurship to blue bloods - that's the conclusion?
> Cool. Know your place, leave enterpreneurship to blue bloods - that's the conclusion?
No.
"When basic needs are met, it’s easier to be creative; when you know you have a safety net, you are more willing to take risks. “
The solution is providing a social safety net that enables that bulk of the population to pursue their dream.
In other words - "to each according to his needs"?
Cause it's either evil monolithic collectivism or saintly and righteous fantasy individualistic libertarianism, those are the two options.
It's not like we can't recognize that most individual success is predicated on a healthy and functional society, one that is inclusive and takes care of its members, rather than one that caters solely to individuals fortunate enough to be born into families that have existing wealth.
> The solution is providing a social safety net that enables that bulk of the population to pursue their dream.
I don't think that will make most people into successful businesspeople (let alone "entrepreneurs" in any non-facile sense of the word), and I don't think that was entirely the point the article was trying to make.
Even with basic needs supported, you still need capital to get a business off the ground "correctly". Unfortunately, in a basic income environment, I bet the people taking full advantage of it still wouldn't have access to that kind of capital.
I've had my own small business for several years now, but I'm looking for work again. The business has several promising irons in the fire, but I lack either the skill or resources to make any of them take off. Having access to basic income wouldn't substantially change my predicament; having access to good credit, capital, or talent would.
1. Contrary to justice or a sense of fairness 2. Contrary to laws or conventions, especially in commerce; unethical: unfair dealing and 3. Not kind or considerate.
Which one do you mean?
> I don't think that will make most people into successful businesspeople (let alone "entrepreneurs" in any non-facile sense of the word), and I don't think that was entirely the point the article was trying to make.
I fully agree! While financial safety is by no means sufficient as a base for successfully starting a business, I do think the article makes a good point of it being necessary, though.
(And I think its important to emphasize that most businesses are not of the venture-backed startup type mostly discussed on this site.)
We have a huge "social safety net" here in France and yet we are way less entrepreneurial than in the US. I moved to Peru for 4 years to save some money and then came back to start a business, the entrepreneurial spirit was way strong stronger there even though the social safety net is inexistent.
Fact is, having a social safety net makes people comfortable in their poor economic situation and does not require them to take risks. Even in the US, the number of new companies created each year has decreased as the welfare state has grown.
I moved to Peru for 4 years to save some money and then came back to start a business, the entrepreneurial spirit was way strong stronger there even though the social safety net is inexistent.
Even trying to register a company is a right pain.
Just as lack of a safety net biases towards action and self reliance, it also skews the risk/reward ratio of those actions firmly towards those most likely to keep the roof over ones head.
Obviously there are plenty of other social and economic differences between Peru and France, but the fact that even Peru's relatively small number of highly-educated people is still highly likely to be underemployed doesn't exactly speak wonders for the potential of all these entrepreneurially-minded Peruvians to actually create jobs.
It's basically giving people complexes. And it might be further exacerbated by the need we all have to ascribe our success exclusively to our own work, never to any external factors (luck, rich parents).
TL, DR; On an average, it is much easier to start a start-up if you have some basic level of financial security in your life.
There's a caveat here. It depends on your responsibilities. If you have children, fixed expenses, then absolutely.
If you have nothing to your name and no responsibilities, it's very easy to take risks without anything to fall back on. After all, you have very little to lose.
On the other hand, if you come from a rather poor background and have no one to fall back on, finding yourself with a failed company, in debt, maybe kicked out of your place because you can't pay rent, I'd say that rather terrifying.
I'm all for entrepreneurship, but if failing means living in the street, then let's just not start a company for now.
There are two types of businesses out there. Those that make money from day 1 and simply need to be scaled up. Those that require substantial investment and time before you even make a penny.
For anyone who isn't financially secure, doing the latter is idiotic. There are plenty of business models that you can pursue that don't involve you ending up on the street. A business model where the worst-case scenario is that you wasted some time.
Gee here we are again talking about the parents. Why not just ask your parents for a million dollar business loan while you're at it Mitt Romney?
Gee here we are again talking about the parents. Why not just ask your parents for a million dollar business loan while you're at it Mitt Romney?
Well, that's mostly an US issue, I guess. When you live in a country with even modest public healthcare, such as Germany, things are not that terrible.
Here, if you get ill, no matter how bad, you get the base treatment that you need. Of course you can (and should) pay on top of that for better treatment. But event without money, you don't have to fear to be denied important treatments. (With some unfortunate, but luckily very rare exceptions.)
Thinking of that, I wonder why we Germans are so conservative, despite living relatively secure. A large portion of our people could take a lot of risk without falling too deep. Probably this is because "falling deep" here means to have to rely on social welfare provision, of which people are afraid of. But this is not really falling deep, compared to living on the street in utter poverty.
(hat tip to Algolia's HN search ;) )
I have spoken to a friend who has rich parents, and the psychological effect is that they always know if something goes wrong they can just be supported by their rich parents when they get back on their feet.
Furthermore they know they can bum around until their parents die and get their retirement money in the form of inheritance. You might be surprised how ever-present that thought is to people like that.
But for people without that option, because their parents can't, they make the right decision and don't take a risk because there is nothing to fall back on.
I wish people wouldn't speak this confidently with such little life experience.
Or provide details about those experiences you think are needed.
The further you deviate from that (not fluent in the right language, from the wrong minority/gender, self-taught, etc.) the more reasonable it is to question how a failure will impact your ability to get jobs at your level or even stay in the field.
I haven't been turned away from the tech startup world, but I'll be much more calculated if I'm ever to join another one. I also don't plan on staking my career purely in startups and am attracted to bootstrapped business now more than ever.
Because if you say that "if you restrict that to only those who are already well-off", their parents probably weren't or their parents' parents etc.
There are many occupations that really only require hard work and little risk that has big payout.
The end result here is that no, life isn't "fair". But by and large, a person that has the ability to take risk, does and succeeds will create that ability for others to do the same in the future.
Such as?
But this supports the whole idea of a basic income - if everyone is able to live without working, they can take risks such as going to University, starting a business, etc...
A lack of social net prevents risk taking and severly limits mobility, creating a 'have-not' class and keeping them there for the most part.
I think we could do better, but I'm not sure what you are saying is correct, either.
There's rather clearer data that the gap between rich & poor continues to widen in the US, which makes it a bit more bleak that going from poor to rich is still a rough uphill battle.
It's also fairly disheartening when you think of all the things that have changed in the past 50 years, many efforts that should help social mobility. Attempting to stop pervasive lead poisoning, lots of grants and policies to help get poor kids through basic and into higher education, legal and other sorts of efforts against sexism and racism... all kinds of things intended to hopefully make the playing ground more fair for everyone haven't actually moved this particular needle at all.
For a bit more context, also look outside of the US. If you want to live the American dream, you'll have a much better chance in Denmark. Reference here (though I read about it elsewhere a few years ago... can't remember orig src): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_the...
Of the 9 developed countries in that study, only the UK ranked worse than the US.
Assigning resources to the most able is, of course, an immensely difficult problem that nobody really knows how to solve. But it should be the goal, and I don't see affluence as a good substitute.
How many people are out there right now with the personal ability to change the world in some large beneficial way, but without the necessary finances? What are the rest of us missing out on because they're stuck working a 9-5 job to pay their rent, while some idiot with money is building Twitter for Cats and talking about how much of a risk taker he is because he's living off $50,000 in savings until the VC money comes in?
In an ideal world would be everyone would be free to take business risks, and customers would reward the ideas that offer a real benefit.
What we have now is a world where hardly anyone is free to take business risks, and the people who are tend to share the same political and social values.
Politically, that makes for caste perpetuation and monoculture - which is the exact opposite of the entrepreneurial mythology.
I think the negative of this is that most of the wealth created in the technology is going to remain in the pockets of those who are already rich and well connected.
I'm increasingly feeling like as our society becomes more technically advanced, it's almost inevitable that the vast majority of wealth is going to flow up to the top 10%.
Problem is in popular culture there are also stories about the 1 out of 1000 guys (just like you) that essentially gambled and came out ahead. Let me say that again. Gambled and won. You hear those all of the time. What you don't hear is about the ones who lost or hit the skids as a result of those chances that they took. Or maybe you do (there are always counter stories floating about) but the shine of the winners typically totally blocks those out.
For example I am sure in response to this thread someone has already mentioned the type of family that Steve Jobs came from.
What you call "popular culture", is just propaganda to make people believe that if they don't became rich is their own fault.
*this advice only applies to upper middle class white males based in Silicon Valley(or at least the US), who own trendy startups that have raised some VC funding
I mean, are you trying to claim there are no upper middle class tech scensters who are Black, Asian, or Female? Or do they get a pass for acting exactly like the white male counterpart because they aren't white males?
PG has little incentive to explicitly qualify ideas that are his foundation (regarding the prerequisites for the above), and frankly it'd kind of break up the nice flow his pieces have anyway if he did. His target audience doesn't want to be told that they started life on second base, and honestly it's quite annoying to have someone tell you so with the intention of taking you down a peg.
Like, back to first base, say?
This is why a lot of HNers flag articles about privilege, sexism, etc.
People without food allergies have privilege in that they don't have to constantly worry whether what they eat will kill them. The people with privilege often just don't have to think about or deal with stuff that those without do.
It could, in principle, be just a claim about the state of the world; in practice, its quite often an ad hominem to dismiss a position they've taken, and often its that with a side of implicit moral judgement that the position is not only invalid because of the claimed privilege, but also that it is maliciously offered as a defense of that privilege at the expense of the unprivileged.
That's not to say that privilege doesn't exist (it does), or that it doesn't at times blind people to others' experiences (it does), or that it doesn't at times lead to people, consciously or not, defending it at the expense of the unprivileged (it does that, too!)
But to pretend that claims of privilege are non-judgemental is ignoring how they are actually used in practice.
That is exactly the same argument that bigots use when they talk about {minorities, poor people, immigrants, LGBT people}. "That person fits into category X, and everyone in category X shares some characteristic Y because they're in that category. I'm just saying that because it's true!" It doesn't matter who that generalization is made about, whether they're the dominant group in society or not. It's still a terrible generalization and an intellectually lazy argument and in and of itself carries a judgement. If you grant that something like "white privilege" or "male privilege" exists (and most people that buy into the concept do) then by that logic a homeless, illiterate white man has more privilege than a black woman millionaire CEO.
>People without food allergies have privilege in that they don't have to constantly worry whether what they eat will kill them.
That's absolute nonsense as well. There exist people without food allergies that have other conditions where they constantly have to worry about what they eat, diabetes being an example. So check your cis-gylcemic privilege you fascist!/s Do you see how ridiculous and divisive that sounds?
To be sure (in the spirt of NY Times "to be sure" statements) [1] PG (who went to Harvard of course as everyone knows) and others always point out the obligatory risks but tend to do so in a way that I think most people perhaps ignore. More or less a "sure it's risky but" as opposed to "you'd be foolish however there's always a small small chance that..."
[1] That is where they (and others in the media) counter something they are saying with the other point of view typically buried 3 quarters down the page as a qualifier.
http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/11/watch-a-vc-use-my-name-to-se...
"I did make a bunch of money by winning the Netscape Startup Lottery, it's true. So did most of the early engineers. But the people who made 100x as much as the engineers did? I can tell you for a fact that none of them slept under their desk. If you look at a list of financially successful people from the software industry, I'll bet you get a very different view of what kind of sleep habits and office hours are successful than the one presented here."
The whole text is worth reading.
After 10 years of being a software engineer you should have enough to retire forever (albeit in some third world country).
But your sentiment is correct: If you're debt-free, you should be able to "soft retire" after 10 years as a software engineer in today's markets.
The approximate rule of thumb (not accounting for investment variability, so be careful!) is that you can extract 4% of your investments annually without affecting the basis (while adjusting it for inflation). So if you can live off that 4% (ie. $40k off a $1M investment portfolio), then you can "soft retire."
There are entire communities dedicated to this notion (eg. http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2012/01/13/the-shockingly-sim...)
Pay is very relative. I look at my old high school buddies, they range from 25k-40k. The first time I asked for 100k, I thought it was craziness. Like no human being deserves that amount of money. So it took me several years to build up to that number.
And I'm sorry, I should explain - I live and work in the EU, in Germany right now. So I can't compare. In any case, one can certainly save, and I'm not gonna lie, I could certainly spend less without losing too much :) But a claim like "10 years is enough to retire" seems a bit extreme.
P.S. I don't think we'll get far with this... i just noticed, e.g., "median household income in the US" - that seems a tricky thing to compare with, given that many ppl in the US don't have health insurance, or live in trailer parks eating off food stamps...
Erm, that's well-known as an excellent school. Top-tier, really. My only qualms about inviting in a Waterloo man for an interview would be that our work might not be interesting enough.
Read Cryptonmicon and you can work out who Randy's' family is based on
I don't follow the Shangai listings (because to me they are kinda pointless) but if pressed to list canadian universities, University of Waterloo would definitely be there....
edit: Your original comment (paraphrased) was, 'I go to this school no one's heard of, but my classmate get offers to <top-tier tech companies>', but the reality of this is that all of these top-tier tech companies are without a doubt quite aware of Waterloo and it's quality. The same can't be said for, what, I don't know, Cleveland State University.
It should come as no surprise that the expenses in those areas are much higher. If you settle for a lower salary in an area with lower living expenses, your effective savings rate could be higher.
Also, you don't want those DC jobs. Just say no. The military industrial complex is a soul-eating machine, and it does not respect software professionals.
The problem is that other places have fewer available jobs in the field, and a greater proportion of them are extremely unglamorous. $90k maintaining a stupid, business-line CRUD app may be less attractive than $80k making custom software for medical researchers.
If you're single and socially unattached, your proposition is viable. But you can't readily expect someone's SO and/or children to be as willing to cut ties with their home. And if you have a solid group of friends, that's a big thing to give up and to try and rebuild in a foreign land without the benefit of common language and culture.
Here's where the correlative kicks in: I always wanted to be a full-time musician, and I still do...but I view success in music a lot like being involved with a start-up. There's the product/service angle (quality and innovation matter, unless they don't), the investor relationship (labels), the marketing budget, and absolutely no guarantees of success. Actually, it's an offhand joke, but being a full-time musician writing originals (e.g. not in a wedding/corporate party cover band) is a lot like choosing poverty up front for a potential windfall later.
Being an employee has been a choice, and one that I'm glad to have made because with patience and investing in myself, I've been able to acquire lots of equipment and spent hundreds - if not thousands - of hours playing, writing and recording music. Because I didn't seek out the 'traditional' channel of label investment and signing away certain rights, I've been able to build a library of my own content which I consider like a savings of sorts. Maybe it's a worthless legacy in dollar terms, or maybe when an opportunity finally arises to do some business with my material, I won't be caught empty handed. The trade-off in security and health isn't glamorous, but it's certainly something I'm proud of choosing and accomplishing thus far.
TL,DR; If your goal is to get a Nolan Ryan rookie card and the guy won't trade it unless you offer the entire roster of the 1989 Oakland As Championship team in trade, then get to work building up what you need to get what you want.
I didn't realize this was some secret. Someone who has parents who are doing well and can pay for their college and living expenses indefinitely will be at an advantage. They can take risks others can't.
BTW, this is true from the time someone is born. Parents who are well off will send their child to pre-pre schools, pay for the best elementary, middle and high schools. Then their child gets to go to college, likely loan free, and can focus on college and not working to pay the bills. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this, and I certainly didn't grow up this way. I'm surprised it wasn't common sense.
So who honestly wants a meritocracy either?
Another option would be that whoever works hard is taken care of. That sounds like the 1950s corporate job with a pension. It may be less exciting and sounds like it would produce less motive for innovation, but it is also less scary and a bit more fair than rewards to the affluent risk takers.
I have no idea how to get the best of all systems. So I make do in this one. I'm just pointing out that no system (known to man) is perfect.
While it has always been true that the strongest factor in a successful life is rich parents, I understand that it is more true today in the US than it has been for the last fifty years. That would suggest that we are further from a meritocracy than we were, and moving away from it.
I grew up without much of anything. Neither parent finished college and both worked all the time. Yet somehow they drilled into me hard work, education, and don't get a girl pregnant while in high school. I am by no means rich, but have done much better than my parents.
Same goes for education. "Rich" people can pursue and education in terms of opportunity costs. Some kids I went to HS with had to work part time to support their own families, having less time to invest in their education ... really sad story.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3155774/
The founders were quite rich and they were of course passionate about their own company because of which they worked even more than me, but I could never feel the same enthusiasm. Interestingly, both of them had worked for larger companies, studied in and traveled to various countries for work which gave me the idea that perhaps it is better to be in a start-up once I have experienced what they have.
The difference is that today you can build a side project on the side while working in a company and hopefully build something up that way. This wasn't possible 20 years ago in the same way.
The good news is that succeeding at three of the four start-ups left me with enough stock options to fund (my share) of my next start-up with cash. While it's looking like I may not see a return on that investment, the product was certainly something the industry needs/needed. As a small boot-strapped company, it's almost impossible to move an industry.
I'm currently working at a university and we've tailored the culture within our group to be much like you'd find in a start-up (the political machinations of a university can however be brutal). In any case, I think I have a couple more ideas that could be turned into start-ups and enough working years left to build a couple more start-ups. I can't think of anything that's more fun.
In contrast to you, I came from an upper-middle class family with a stay-at-home mom and a go-to-work dad. Things were comfortable when I was at home but I'd have never asked any of my relatives for money to create a start-up and my parents were far more risk averse than I (originally they mildly disapproved of the risks I was taking but seem to have realized I always "left myself an out" so that in the worst possible outcome, I could take care of my wife and kids).
So it might be true that most kids these days have the money to be entrepreneurs, I say it was definitely in my genes. (As an aside, in the '80s I think most of the start-ups I saw were people who were risking almost everything to get started because they had a vision - it's much easier to fail if there are no consequences).
My parents wanted me to follow the "safe path", to be the '50s style company man who would work his 40 years and retire with a good pension. They wouldn't endorse the life I ended up living. I was however encouraged to be curious and the "hack". That was an amazing gift and I am in fact grateful for my privileged upbringing - I'm just not tanned from laying on the beach at the Hamptons.
It's really amazing just how many people cannot even fathom that others do not have the familial safety net and have been working to support themselves from an age where said people were just starting to think about what school to go to. For many, until they've lived on the razor's edge, they simply do not have the mental framework for understanding what living that way does to people.
Edit: I'd also add that for those of us who have seen the other side (I was upper middle class from 0-9 years old, fell into poverty after and lived that way until my early 20s - riches to rags sucks. Badly. Read all about it here if you're curious: https://medium.com/@opirmusic/why-software-developers-should...) we know what the other side is like. We've seen it. We know what it's like to never worry about transportation, decent food, school supplies, books, tutors, spending money - and the ever-present implicit safety net. We saw our parents' friends go on vacations, buy multiple cars, live in huge houses, etc. So anyone, anyone who says it isn't a huge advantage is delusional or lying.
The other antipattern is spoiling kids and helicopter parenting, which leads to sheltered/learned-helplessness kids. Letting kids struggle more to learn for themselves and earn things is important because the role of the parent to prepare people to become independent, survive and thrive. Also, expecting them to do more with much less improves their ingenuity out of necessity. People/startups that are broke can often attain what others cannot because they are able to make something awesome out of what other people call "junk" and waste less money.
Speaking as somebody who's been there, I'm really concerned with this "poor changes your mind" thing I'm seeing. Buddhists manage to live and be happy not having much at all. For the vast majority of history, great men lived in conditions much worse than the average poor person in the western world does.
I agree that many rich people do not understand poor people. Likewise, many poor people do not understand rich people. But when people say things like "So your startup doesn't work out, why don't you just go live with family", they are not simply showing that they don't understand your situation. They're trying to point out: what's the worse that could happen? I've been homeless, I've lost everything I've owned. You go through a lot of crap an either you sit in the corner feeling sorry for yourself or you start thinking "So I could lose the house? It's not the end of the world." Doesn't mean I'd do it lightly, but I am in control and I have the power to make that decision.
I really don't care who has a private jet or has never worried about food or shelter. Moreso, I find worrying about those things is a good sign my head is in the wrong place for actually making me a better person.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/25/escaping-the...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/21/magazine/do-you-suffer-fro...
I'm also referring to the incredible narrowing of choices that you're left with (this one I've experienced first-hand, and by a read of these comments many here have experienced it as well), which you are surely well aware of. Don't let "what you don't like" or "what should/should not be" dictate your interpretation of the reality. I don't like that stuff either, but I'm not going to deny its real effects. It's not only callous, it's not correct.
There's probably also a marginal reduction in reward, as the reward of entrepreneurial success for the poverty-stricken would include safe housing, food, education for children, etc., which the wealthy already have, but it seems we have no problems desiring to spend more than we currently have.
"I'm now further from where I started, than where I started was from where you started. So if you couldn't even make it from where you started to where I started, how do you expect that you could have made it from where I started to where I am now?"
People may choose to respond to this by saying something that confirms their idea that they are fundamentally more worse off than you. They may call you privilege blind. They may say it is easier if they had X more capital. The may say anything that confirms their hypothesis that without having whatever they credit you with possessing, they are less capable.
I implore you, be not discouraged, nor believe your success any the lesser. Recognize that they are disempowering themselves and, that by believing that success is something that must be given to them rather than something they create, they are acting privileged and entitled, the very things they are trying to say you are. Recognize and, if you like, benevolently point out, that this chosen self-disempowerment, this unworkable attitude, is a poverty of the spirit that will disadvantage them ( by their own choice ) far more than any difference between how much they started with, and how much you did.
For if at every step of the way, people are looking to those who have more than them and, "proving" to themselves that this difference was all about different starting points rather than about a different sequence of choices, then such people are disempowering the power of choice, and, how likely do you feel such people will be, to ever make a string of choices that leads to success?
No, friends, heed not their admonishments, and keep your children away from their siren songs, for they are only the delusional whispers of a people soothing themselves into apathy by telling themselves they never coulda, instead of believing that they fully could have, had they only chosen to take responsibility for success, instead of deluding themselves that it was owed to them.
To put it in more general terms : Being a fake victim doesn't work, you just disempower yourself. When you see people better of than you, choosing to be inspired and to acknowledge their achievements works. Choosing to pretend to yourself that success is something that must be given to you, instead of something you create yourself, is just acting privileged and entitled, and it doesn't work and it actually, this attitude, makes it less likely for you to succeed. An attitude that acknowledge the choices that lead to success, and that takes responsibility yourself to create your own success through your own choices, this attitude works, and makes it more likely for you to succeed. Anything else, any stories you choose to tell yourself about how it's so unfair, is just you choosing to substitute the fake payoff of feeling like a righteous fake victim of unfairness, for the real payoff of actually creating results.
Trying to spread to others the claptrap that people are powerless, so you can confirm your own delusions that they are, is just incorrectly trying to disempower others, and it's just wrong.
TL;DR -- Deluding yourself that success is given, rather than created, is not an attitude that works to help you create your own success.
I hope this cleared some things up for some people. Those too far gone in excusing themselves a lack of success due to a fantasy of disadvantage may or may not be beyond the reach of such simple words, and I hope they can be reached. For everyone else I have even more hope.
Keep the faith, it is up to you.
A person who's life is made up of 'being at the end of their runway' is shamed for not just 'go out and make another $5'. Nothing disingenuous about this dichotomy?
Your fancy words conceal an illogicality of thought. Clear your thought, before you clothe it in fancy words, otherwise you get confused. Stopping making excuses and tolerating that from others, is the way of genuine concern for helping others improve.
Believing differently is your choice, and it won't work. Think more before you write more.
Your prose is clothed in finery that would make Louis XIV cringe.
As the Spartans said to Philip of Macedonia: "If."
That is so ridiculously built on false premises that I don't even know where to start. But for starters, you are assuming that the 'effort' (since that's all you think it takes) to get from, say $10K to $100K, is exactly equivalent to the effort to get from $100K to $190K, or whatever. Unlikely to be true.
What if you're a real victim, I wonder? What works then?
And if there is no higher force to help you -- spiritual victory is one possibility: "Your life is what your thoughts make of it."
I cannot even describe what sort of relief I felt having my meals provided for, laundry taken care of, having bed to sleep in, someone to talk to, help to, care for... That was when I figured, given this bare essentials provided by family, I have basically nothing to lose by taking much more risks in life and working on what I care about. I like to think I've instilled that appreciation to my siblings, as well as parents.
Three months after that, I've found investors, moved to freeload in one of their penthouses, while I work in a high-risk field of game development. We'll see how that turns out, but I have no fear - I have family to fall back on.
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I'm aware not everyone has what I have with my family, but I'm certain many more do not appreciate what they already have.
For everyone else, there's Limited Liability.
The unfortunate result of that is that in order to start a business that requires more than an investment of spare time and professional skill (programming or a service based business) everything else is left to the mercy of investors.
It's an unfortunate reality.
Working in an industry where $120k/year is considered a starting salary, and where you know for a certainty that you are roughly one Twitter post away from having your pick of three companies that will fight to get you, you can feel free to pursue any goofy idea you like without fearing much for your financial safety should things go wrong.
Yet another reason this is the best industry to be in right now.
I've noticed this happening a lot in the last few years, as developer salaries have skyrocketed but guys who had secured jobs before that still quote 2005 numbers as though they were the case today.
You don't need to be in Silicon Valley to make six figures as a developer. Taking that on board rather than rejecting it offhand can only lead you to a better place.
A kid from a good school capable of working for a Facebook or Google would be we'll served by holding out for that unrealistic Bay Area starting salary. It's not as unrealistic as you believe.
Can't concur on that one. I've been looking for more than a year for a job after graduation and getting through those interviews was hard. But maybe it's different here in Europe.
rich people have it easy. because a failure is not really a failure for them... it's an attempt.
But for the rest of us a failure is a failure. Deal with it.
You don't need to be from a rich family to do these things.
Of course not. Who said so? The point is that coming from wealth increases the odds that you'll end up being the type of person who will follow that program. It's not simply about having the capital; it's what coming from a place where security is guaranteed does to your psyche.
P(became_successful_entrepreneur|was_poor) > 0.0000000000
A technically-true statement, but not a useful one.
Someone from a rich family has more of a safety net, straight out of the gate, than someone from a poor family.
Uh, in the USA 2015, you do. Or you need to be a very lucky lottery winner. Living-wage jobs are not available to all, and you need a modicum of education to secure one.
That education is no longer free.
I do not come from a family with money. I grew up below the poverty line in fact. This article is crap. It is like saying "Entrepreneurs are all white males" because a lot of entrepreneurs are - but it marginalizes all the people, the many many people, who have succeeded as entrepreneurs despite starting from a very small seed (and who weren't white males of privilege).
I have a company because I couldn't imagine working for someone else. I have tried a couple times for a few months, but in the end I can't do it. So I work for myself, and have for 25 years. I start companies because I can't not do it. I have too many ideas, and I want to see if they work so I do little experiments that sometimes turn into viable projects.
While I agree I can't take on Tesla unless I had a spare billion laying around, that ignores that there are lots of businesses that can be started for a few dollars. This article ignores all of those business too. Not every business has to be the next Uber.
It doesn't say that all successful entrepreneurs are white, male and privileged. It just says that a lot of them are and that the largest indicator was being white, male and privileged.
This comic does an excellent job of summing it up:
http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate
What is left out in that strip, is that because of the way I grew up, I am left with a drive to accomplish things that I simply do not see in my own children. The hunger, the drive, the ambition are all from a crappy childhood. The drive is where my success came from, it is what gets me off the floor when life knocks me down. It is the drive that provides the "I refuse to lose" mentality.
I don't claim that this drive is all good. A lot of times I think it makes me a little obsessive and crazy in my need to succeed and reduces the number of days I relax.
I saw 'paywall' and guess the actual research is hidden.
I've always thought the framing of capital risk as the primary basis for allocating reward was suspect for this reason.