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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”

#51

Post by malux85 »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #30
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.

There’s a big difference between poor and zero, and a poor person betting on a startup can hit zero really quick.

At zero, you cannot pay rent and are likely to get evicted. Once evicted you are potentially NFA, which means you can’t get a bank card posted to you if you have problems with your card. How can you pay for food? Where can you use the bathroom? What about the electricity bill before you got evicted? The electricity bill that was late and now unpaid that’s ruining your credit score? Now you have bad credit and will find it harder getting a flat.

The above sentences where not chronologically cohesive because there’s so much working against the poor and those at zero, and I’m on mobile, I couldn’t take an hour to type it all out.

How on earth do you expect a poor person to do a startup, when they can barely feed themselves and keep a roof over their head?

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

#52

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#53

Post by bubblewrap »

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…

Class may also mean you have no examples of entrepreneurship in your environment.

I don't think PG claimed that poor people are as likely as rich people to become successful founders. That's not the same thing. He says you don't have to be rich to succeed.

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

#54

Post by bko »

KaiserPro wrote: post #44
bko wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you need "a decent wedge of cash" to have a degree? 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 exp…

So, working a four day week, and studying full time to do a degree. Yes, I can see that allowing lots of time to form a network and come up with business ideas.

I was replying to the specific claim that getting a degree requires a lot of money.

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

#55

Post by hef19898 »

brain5ide wrote: post #49
ekianjo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strawman. I was answering the previous point: betting is probably a reasonable choice when you have not much to begin with. I would not make a 2 lines comment to explain poverty as a whole.

No. Betting is a reasonable choice when you, like a VC can bet on a ton of options and still have cash left for immediate problems. All other times, betting is playing your luck and bound to fail.

First, I don't want to read to much into the OP regarding betting. Because there is something to it. Without risks no rewards. Yet what constitutes a risk and a reward differ significantly based on your resources.

That being said, risking some of your resources, money, time, whatever, to get out of poverty is reasonable. Betting on a start-up might not be. Simply because if it goes wrong instead of rewards there might be debt and even worse poverty.

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

#56

Post by huffmsa »

Easier, sure. Not having a backstop means failure == death. Which isn't for the faint of heart, but that's the story of almost every Americans lineage at some point in the past. It takes a bit of luck, but rarely is it more luck than nose to the grindstone effort.

My anecdotes:

I have one great-great-grandfather who thought he had an office job in British Columbia, but by the time he sailed from England and crossed the continent the company had folded. But his family was already on their way, so he started working every mining job he could, and invested every spare pence he had into real estate. His sons did the same.

My paternal great-grandfather came over from Italy, got harassed out of NYC by the Irish, bought a small farm in Oklahoma, and his children did the same.

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

#57

Post by bubblewrap »

Most people, even poor people, have parents who would help them out in case of need. They seem to be discussing a pretty low bar here.

And of course it is a "privilege" to have supporting parents. So what? If you don't have that privilege, what are you supposed to do? Kill yourself?

I think such privilege discussions are rather silly. What's the point? That people should be showered with tax payer money to even out their privileges? Or people with bad parents should be given state assistance (substitute parents)?

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

#58

Post by tomp »

adamlett wrote: post #21
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?

He's saying more something along the lines of "women can be elite performers too" (and that being genetically/on average less strong shouldn't stop them from trying) - which isn't entirely wrong, especially since we're already talking about like 0.01% of the population (successful entrepreneurs / elite sports(wo)men).

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

#59

Post by UweSchmidt »

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".

Which is a problem in itself: It is getting difficult to appreciate just how rich or poor you are!

- The income gap is growing, creating many more levels of wealth, each considerably richer/poorer than the next.

- A lot of wealth is kinda in the background, like the real estate someone's parents might have that isn't discussed, but will probably be inherited someday?

- Products and services cater to the different wealth tiers and create separation and filter bubbles.

This results in very weathy people innocently betraying their ignorance in various public statements, like

https://www.samefacts.com/2012/01/everything-else/mitt-romne...

https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2016/11/18/steve-young-usfl-4...

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

#60

Post by bubblewrap »

huffmsa wrote: post #56

Easier, sure. Not having a backstop means failure == death. Which isn't for the faint of heart, but that's the story of almost every Americans lineage at some point in the past. It takes a bit of luck, but rarely is it more luck than nose to the grindstone effort. My anecdotes: I have one great-great-grandfather who thought he had an office job in British Columbia, but by the time he sailed from England and crossed t…

That seems overly dramatic. Not everybody who loses their job dies. Most people seem to not die in that situation, actually.

Failing at your startup would at most be equal to losing your job. You won't die just because of that.

Even if you end up in debt, there are insolvency laws. You can just go flipping burgers for a couple of years and be good.

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