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“It’s hard to take risks if you don’t have a safety net”

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Re: “It’s hard to take risks if you don’t have a safety net”

#11

Post by 55555 »

Havoc wrote: post #7
bryanrasmussen wrote: post #4

I think if Paul G. came out a little less strong at the beginning - without 'bullshit' - this wouldn't be an issue. On the other hand there is the habit nowadays of having to guard and specify ones statements zealously in order not to get called out for something a reasonably lenient reading would allow, but calling something 'bullshit' probably doesn't get you into that other hand category.

Yeah that seemed way over the top

Agreed. I'm guessing they have some personal beef/history. Hence "I would normally..."

Re: “It’s hard to take risks if you don’t have a safety net”

#13

Post by njepa »

jacquesm wrote: post #2

How do countries with good social safety nets factor in here? In EU people are definitely not nearly as likely to start their own business as in the US, and many people that would otherwise be labelled 'jobless' (or on the dole) are 'self employed' instead.

I does factor in, it is somewhat hard to see because startups will always be marginal. In Sweden both Markus Persson (Minecraft) and Daniel Ek (Spotify) come from non-privileged background, with little university experience. When you see this in the US it is usually that someone got into a well known school first, with the contacts that bring.

Re: “It’s hard to take risks if you don’t have a safety net”

#14

Post by praptak »

A poor person betting everything on their startup is definitely good for pg - it increases the pool of people whose work he can profit from.

It's not that obvious if it's good for the poor person. I guess that everybody has their own risk aversion threshold.

Re: “It’s hard to take risks if you don’t have a safety net”

#15

Post by bryanrasmussen »

55555 wrote: post #11
Havoc wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that seemed way over the top

Agreed. I'm guessing they have some personal beef/history. Hence "I would normally..."

yeah, hmm I got downvoted, I should probably have started out with my own 'I would normally...'

Re: “It’s hard to take risks if you don’t have a safety net”

#16

Post by KaiserPro »

PandaRider wrote: post #8

I'm shaking my head right now because I can't believe people at the top is still susceptible to sampling/survivorship bias. I've tried searching but cannot find a good empirical study of privilege and entrepreneurship correlation. However, I've found an essay paper [0] that exactly predicted this twitter drama; that entrepreneurs simultaneously present and erase this conversation about class and entrepreneurship. The…

The only data I can get is this: https://www.kauffman.org/what-we-do/research/2009/04/educati...

93% had a degree, with 30% having a masters, That would suggest to me that you'd need a decent wedge of cash.

Now, what is interesting, is that in 2016 at least, the US created gross 960k new companies (there is some smoothing here, so +- 100k) The UK created 460k. Seeing as how the UK is 60 million, versus 300 million people, either the US is under performing, or the UK is wildly over performing. (https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/advocacy/2018-Small-... and https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06... for stats)

Perhaps, as we don't have to worry about healthcare or no competes, that might be a factor.

Re: “It’s hard to take risks if you don’t have a safety net”

#17

Post by jonathankoren »

PandaRider wrote: post #8

I'm shaking my head right now because I can't believe people at the top is still susceptible to sampling/survivorship bias. I've tried searching but cannot find a good empirical study of privilege and entrepreneurship correlation. However, I've found an essay paper [0] that exactly predicted this twitter drama; that entrepreneurs simultaneously present and erase this conversation about class and entrepreneurship. The…

Why is it surprising? There’s a combination of blindness, and inflated sense of self worth. America romanticizes the “self-made man”, and so any help is discounted. (Famously, a $1M family loan in 1975 (4.8M in 2019 dollars) was described as “small”.) Not coincidentally, these is a strong correlation with ascribing their success to a meritocracy, even though luck has been repeatedly shown more influential factor in success.[0]

[0] https://www.fastcompany.com/40510522/meritocracy-doesnt-exis...

Re: “It’s hard to take risks if you don’t have a safety net”

#18

Post by rlue »

skrebbel wrote: post #3

It's a nice mini soap opera but the core is that actually they agree but have a different definition of "rich kids".

I agree, and would go a step further to say that the response to PG is woefully exaggerated. The fate of the poor is truly deplorable in the US, but that doesn't mean that every conversation about risk, opportunity, and entrepreneurship has to rise to the defense of the disadvantaged.

PG is saying you don't have to be rich to launch a successful startup. By this, I believe he means private-school, summer-house, frequent-flyer-miles-in-your-early-20s rich. I would contend this is at least 90th-percentile rich for US households.

His critics suggested he be sensitive to those who literally have no safety net, and could not move back in with their parents if it all came crashing down—I would contend this is at most 40th-percentile "rich" for US households.

Can we cut the guy some slack and let him speak to the 50+% of people in the middle? Honestly, that's undoubtedly where the bulk of his target audience resides—people who'd like to launch a startup but worry that they're not sufficiently privileged to do it.

Re: “It’s hard to take risks if you don’t have a safety net”

#19

Post by rahimnathwani »

KaiserPro wrote: post #16
PandaRider wrote: post #8

I'm shaking my head right now because I can't believe people at the top is still susceptible to sampling/survivorship bias. I've tried searching but cannot find a good empirical study of privilege and entrepreneurship correlation. However, I've found an essay paper [0] that exactly predicted this twitter drama; that entrepreneurs simultaneously present and erase this conversation about class and entrepreneurship. The…

The only data I can get is this: https://www.kauffman.org/what-we-do/research/2009/04/educati... 93% had a degree, with 30% having a masters, That would suggest to me that you'd need a decent wedge of cash. Now, what is interesting, is that in 2016 at least, the US created gross 960k new companies (there is some smoothing here, so +- 100k) The UK created 460k. Seeing as how the UK is 60 million, versus 300 million pe…

Registering a company in the UK, and keeping it running, is both simpler and cheaper than in the US.

Registering a company takes a few minutes and costs less than $30. Compulsory annual filing costs less than $20. If your company's revenue is below some threshold, you don't need to register for VAT (similar to sales tax). And there's another (even higher) threshold below which you can file very simple annual accounts (unaudited, and including neither income statements nor cash flow).

Re: “It’s hard to take risks if you don’t have a safety net”

#20

Post by jacquesm »

KaiserPro wrote: post #10
jacquesm wrote: post #2

How do countries with good social safety nets factor in here? In EU people are definitely not nearly as likely to start their own business as in the US, and many people that would otherwise be labelled 'jobless' (or on the dole) are 'self employed' instead.

This is demonstrably untrue. Looking at the official docs here: https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/advocacy/2018-Small-... for the US and here: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06... for the UK (both are PDFs) In the USA for the first quarter of 2016, there were 240,000 new companies. So just million in a year, assuming that trend. Also, that is all companies, including those with no emp…

The UK and quite a few other places require gig economy operators to register as an independent business.
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