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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”

#21

Post by adamlett »

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.

Idk, it seems to me that PG is just wrong about this. Not categorically and in every single instance, but on the whole. It's like saying women are physically stronger than men, and pointing to some woman who is clearly an outlier. You could word it less strongly and say that some women are stronger than some men. But then what would be your point?

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

#22

Post by mbeex »

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.

> I think if Paul G. came out a little less strong at the beginning - without 'bullshit' - this wouldn't be an issue.

The much more interesting remark is the following part:

"...because it discourages people who aren't from trying it"

This is the soil he makes a living from, eventually. Cui bono, essentially.

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

#23

Post by pjc50 »

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…

The UK also makes company formation very easy and still slightly advantageous for sole traders, which may be a factor. I did check the criteria and they do include "must be listed for VAT or PAYE", so they're all real businesses to some extent and not just shells.

The US would do well to look at its business licensing requirements to see if they could be simplified in terms of paperwork.

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

#24

Post by chongli »

njepa wrote: post #13
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.

Anyone who was born a citizen of Sweden is highly privileged on a global level. Compare with anyone from a developing country and it's easy to see all of the advantages that enabled those fortunes to be made.

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

#25

Post by pjc50 »

jacquesm wrote: post #20
KaiserPro wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't think that applies to this stat, though; gig economy workers are required to register as self-employed for tax and NI purposes, but that's not the same thing as being a business, which I think in those stats requires one of VAT (turnover higher than a threshold of £85k) or PAYE (employing someone else).

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

#26

Post by pfortuny »

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…

You are totally on spot. Survivorship bias is the ban of any honest discussion on this.

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

#27

Post by DevX101 »

faceplanted wrote: post #9
gingabriska wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read somewhere most businesses in US are started by immigrants. So only a person with means can immigrate to US, I guess even the people coming from India or China or Eastern Europe do have people back in home backing them financially or in other words they've enough financial moat to take risks through which they are able to jetset themsleves into new businesses. I've this friend in Europe he's working on a startu…

Do remember that immigrants aren't usually trying to start the same kinds of businesses as the "natives", small businesses make a lot of sense if you want to be able to rely on yourself and not an employer who might not appreciate that you're just learning the language, and if you're willing to make use of the labour of your entire family rather than just a breadwinner. If you're an immigrant there are small business…

55% of billion dollar startups had an immigrant founder. It's not just mom & pop shops.

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

#28

Post by DanielBMarkham »

Twitter wins again.

We keep reducing these complex multivariate social issues to simple cause-effect situations then beating one another up over what the simple cause is.

When we're doing definitions, the key phrase is "necessary and sufficient" In this case, being rich or poor is neither necessary nor sufficient since we have plenty of examples of things working out with either of these two things being missing. So really the discussion is much more like "Does condition X provide a 3 or a 4 percent boost?"

But that's not as fun to argue about.

We oversimplify life and public policy-making at our own peril.

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

#29

Post by njepa »

rlue wrote: post #18
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, frequ…

> By this, I believe he means private-school, summer-house, frequent-flyer-miles-in-your-early-20s rich.

The example given literally attended one of the top private art school in the world. The reason people are reacting is likely because of this often damaging non-differentiation of being temporarily and perpetually poor. Many people can't even afford to move to a city these days, let alone start a startup. And if they do it might have negative consequences for years and years.

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

#30

Post by AlexTWithBeard »

praptak wrote: post #14

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.

A poor person betting everything... a poor person usually doesn't have much, besides the time and dedication.
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