Entrepreneurs don’t have a gene for risk – they come from families with money • Hacker News Board

Re: Entrepreneurs don’t have a gene for risk – they come from families with money

#281

Post by Retra » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 9:50 PM UTC

eloff wrote: post #252

lhc- wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Re: Entrepreneurs don’t have a gene for risk – they come from families with money

#282

Post by matwood » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 9:57 PM UTC

pound wrote: post #196

matwood wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 thei…

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.

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.

Re: Entrepreneurs don’t have a gene for risk – they come from families with money

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Post by Retra » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 10:02 PM UTC

ilaksh wrote: post #191

dahart wrote: post #126

The article is arguing as if Social Darwinism is an accepted theory of business success. Is it really? I don't think so. I followed several of the links the article was using to support the Social Darwinism claim. One only was actually making that claim (inc.com) and it was obvious pseudo-science, it has the wonderful line: "Self-employment income is heritable". To the people taking offense to this because they didn'…

Social Darwinism is literally the most popular belief system in the US (and many other countries) aside from some Christian morality. It is popular among rich, poor, and in between. Most are thinking to themselves "even though I don't have as many advantages I will still be able to make it some day because deep down I a, special". So that belief system helps rationalize self-worth.

Most people believe they will be successful because failure is not an option to aspire to.

Re: Entrepreneurs don’t have a gene for risk – they come from families with money

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Post by kelukelugames » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 10:07 PM UTC

nostrebored wrote: post #240

kelukelugames wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>honestly it's quite annoying to have someone tell you so with the intention of taking you down a peg. This is why a lot of HNers flag articles about privilege, sexism, etc.

Damn man, people really wanted to prove your point.

What do you mean?

Re: Entrepreneurs don’t have a gene for risk – they come from families with money

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Post by notahacker » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 10:21 PM UTC

rebootthesystem wrote: post #270

notahacker wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but this being HN, we're interested in the "disrupt an entire industry" type business, which are overwhelmingly started by people with good connections and a top university degree that hasn't burdened them with unsustainable debt. Not to mention overwhelmingly involving people who have chosen to relocate to the highest cost of living parts of the US to try to get on the radar of VCs, and are foregoing the >$100…

Someone putting it all on the line is putting it all on the line, it doesn't matter if they are selling flowers at the corner or doing something larger than that. A plumber (or a small or trades entrepreneur) doesn't take failure lightly as you've suggested. Regardless of scale, a failure is a traumatic event and fighting against it can take months or years. If you've never lived through the anguish of having a busin…

I certainly didn't mean to belittle plumbers, or so-called "lifestyle businesses". Just to point out that the "1 in ten people is an entrepreneur"-type business-founding statistics are filled with people that are less playing VC-roulette and more hoping/expecting they can make more money as a contractor than an employee (I even had the "maybe you should form a limited company for your work on this project" conversation myself this morning). The tech startup bubble, on the other hand, is filled with people that will quite seriously advance the argument that bringing in actual revenue is something that should be postponed until a much later stage even if possible from day one. You tend to need a certain amount of privilege to think like that.

SV survivor-bias success stories are also littered with companies which might well have been allowed to fail if it came down to putting the founders' houses on the line...

Re: Entrepreneurs don’t have a gene for risk – they come from families with money

#286

Post by robocat » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 10:22 PM UTC

Let's call it an "orderly" mind, and Austrians and Swiss seem to have it too.

A Bosnian recently said that Slovenia was more "Austrian" than Bosnia when talking about this trait to me.

Re: Entrepreneurs don’t have a gene for risk – they come from families with money

#287

Post by thuuuomas » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 10:22 PM UTC

patzerhacker wrote: post #214

kelukelugames wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>honestly it's quite annoying to have someone tell you so with the intention of taking you down a peg. This is why a lot of HNers flag articles about privilege, sexism, etc.

Privilege is just secular "original sin".

I bet that line goes over well at the golf course.

Re: Entrepreneurs don’t have a gene for risk – they come from families with money

#288

Post by joelrunyon » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 10:24 PM UTC

thyrsus wrote: post #229

mindcrime wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how you can say it offers any value. There are no actionable insights here. You can't change your family, so in the end, every individual still faces exactly the same choice: pursue the entrepreneurial path, or not. What other people did and what their circumstances were is irrelevant. If the article purported to prove that it is impossible to succeed as an entrepreneur without coming from a rich family,…

The article summarizes imporant data . Action items I take from the article: * Plan that most of my competitors are better funded than I am because of family and social strata. * Compensate for those deficits before engaging in a startup, either as founder or employee. E.g., look for an angel investor (difficult, because there are none associated with my family or friends). * Stick to my day job. * Be open to governm…

All of your action items are defeatist items.

How about: work at your day job and bootstrap a startup until it's cash flow positive or work as an apprentice for an entrepreneur until you can start your own.

Every successful entrepreneur I know outside of the valley has started in one of those two ways.

The idea of a "startup" having to have funding is looking at entrepreneurship in a complete backwards way.

Re: Entrepreneurs don’t have a gene for risk – they come from families with money

#289

Post by gtremper » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 10:30 PM UTC

patzerhacker wrote: post #214

kelukelugames wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>honestly it's quite annoying to have someone tell you so with the intention of taking you down a peg. This is why a lot of HNers flag articles about privilege, sexism, etc.

Privilege is just secular "original sin".

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.

Re: Entrepreneurs don’t have a gene for risk – they come from families with money

#290

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Sep 01, 2015, 10:43 PM UTC

gtremper wrote: post #289

patzerhacker wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Privilege is just secular "original sin".

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 whethe…

> 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.