31–40 of 384 posts
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.
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…
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…
I think it's more like whether it brings a 400% boost. It is definitely an important discussion to have. Whether Twitter is the place is another story.
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 not betting on anything is bound to stay poor. Your point is?
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…
At this point, to encourage health and respectful public discourse, the first step is to delete your twitte account. And probably facebook too.
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?
This would be more analogous to "you don't need to be a man to be strong", rather than "women are stronger than men".
I think PG's concern is if it's understood "you need to be rich to be a founder", then if you're not rich, you think it won't be possible to be a founder.
Paul seems to be saying you don't have to be rich to do a startup.
Matthew is saying lots of founder have some resources (family home, savings, great education, i.e. middle-class) that made doing a startup feasible
Both these positions are true and aren't incompatible. Being middle class (Matthew's position) and prudent with savings can afford you probably a year of runway.
But I'd never recommend someone who was truly destitute or food insecure to do a startup. If you come from a poor family there will also be family/cultural pressure not to do a startup and instead get a good paying job(assuming you have the ability).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A poor person not betting on anything is bound to stay poor. Your point is?
Isn't that oversimplifying the whole social issue of why people are poor, stay poor or become poor?
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…
There are plenty of universities that are affordable. For instance, City University of New York (CUNY) offers four year undergrad degrees for $6,730 a year [0]. You can get a room share in an outer borough for maybe 500 - 1.5k a month or Jersey for even less [1]. And this is one of the most expensive cities in the world. If you're smart, avoid unnecessary expenses, you can probably get by on 20k a year in expenses, which comes out to 26 hours a week at $15/hr, ignoring taxes. Taxes at about 15% at that low income means you'll probably want to earn closer to 25k to have 20k net which means 31 hours a week. But realistically you'll probably want to work full time or over time during the months school is not in session and closer to 20 hours a week at other times. Or try to find a job that pays more.
Don't know much about health insurance so that's also something you'll have to consider getting maybe through the school or some city program or just go without it.
Or just move to a more affordable city and probably cut everything above in half while hopefully only giving up a bit of the wage you'll earn
[0] https://www2.cuny.edu/financial-aid/tuition-and-college-cost...
[1] https://newyork.craigslist.org/d/rooms-shares/search/roo