211–220 of 384 posts
Let's not forget that Graham has also publicly written he would be loath to choose any woman as a startup founder "who had small children, or was likely to have them soon." The man has a type, and the demographics of YC reflect it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you really think someone's ending point as an adult is largely limited to their "brains"? Like, how are you going to completely exclude the upbringing environment and the scarcity and struggle for resources that some folks face.
It's not "what I think", it's what we know. One of the most well established facts in sociology is that IQ is the best predictor for life success: Firkowska-Mankiewicz, Anna, and Jerzyna Słomczyńska. Intelligence (IQ) as a Predictor of Life Success. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20628656 You reiterate my question in the second sentence: How do we weight these different privileges?
Perhaps, but the paper also concludes "that the importance of the role of IQ in predicting life success should not be overestimated". Furthermore while IQ did to some degree predict objective life success it does not seem to predict subjective life success, ie how happy you are with how your life turned out.
"Your first goal after university should be to build yourself a safety net."
Once you have $10k in the bank, you can start taking risks just like those privileged kids that are starting all the startups with their unfair advantages.
Best of all for us, we work in software, where socking away your first ten thousand dollars happens automatically after landing an entry level dev gig, provided you don't go out of your way to blow your entire outlandish salary on silly possessions.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Health care is not needed. Undergrads are mostly young, and without kids. It is unusual for them to visit a doctor - maybe they get an infection, a $30 visit to a "minute clinic" and $20 in antibiotics, but that is a one time thing. For the cheaper universities you can support yourself working 30 hours a week, if you make your degree a 5 year program you can cut your classes down enough that you can live on your inco…
No health insurance? Sport accidents, serious illness, traffic accident, children,... Honestly, I still can't wrap my head around the fact someone would choose to live without coverage. That some are forced to in developed countries is shitty enough!
I'd still want health insurance, but the odds are in your favor if you choose to not have it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is that it gets read as a false dilemma. Talking about rich people and saying "you don't have to be rich to..." is like walking into a room of black people and saying "You don't have to be white to...". Nobody there is going to think that you're talking about asians. The statement doesn't really say anything except that 'being rich' is something that can come from some other non-rich state. It doesn't spe…
I don't think it matters what we're defining as rich. We can be honest without being destructive. I feel like our culture is constantly telling people they can't do anything with their life if they don't have every box of privilege checked. It's terribly psychologically destructive. Life is a constant struggle,a real river of shit sometimes, but it's one in which our own actions are still the biggest determining fact…
Life is obviously not an equally constant struggle for everyone.
Social mobility has been declining for years.
For any individual you can create a counterfactual to suggest that their choices are what created their outcome.
However it’s also unarguable that we are not all facing the same risk/reward choices.
And of course people who take on more risk are going to fail more often. And those without a safety net will end up worse off than where they started.
It wouldn’t be risk otherwise.
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…
Silly Twitter fight aside, the key piece of advice that us regular non-rich folk should take away is this: "Your first goal after university should be to build yourself a safety net." Once you have $10k in the bank, you can start taking risks just like those privileged kids that are starting all the startups with their unfair advantages. Best of all for us, we work in software, where socking away your first ten thous…
Silly Twitter fight aside, the key piece of advice that us regular non-rich folk should take away is this: "Your first goal after university should be to build yourself a safety net." Once you have $10k in the bank, you can start taking risks just like those privileged kids that are starting all the startups with their unfair advantages. Best of all for us, we work in software, where socking away your first ten thous…
This is shockingly out of touch with reality, just like PG's original tweet.
There are plenty of people with CS degrees who can't find a job, and plenty more who have jobs that barely pay enough to cover their expenses.
Spend some time reading through something like the CSCareerQuestions subreddit if you want to get a glimpse of life outside your bubble.
The reality is that money lets you "take risks," and money gives you options (in this world). To be honest, I don't think that starting your company with the "risk" that you might move back in with your parents if it fails... is at all a meaningful risk.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Health care is not needed. Undergrads are mostly young, and without kids. It is unusual for them to visit a doctor - maybe they get an infection, a $30 visit to a "minute clinic" and $20 in antibiotics, but that is a one time thing. For the cheaper universities you can support yourself working 30 hours a week, if you make your degree a 5 year program you can cut your classes down enough that you can live on your inco…
> Health care is not needed. Undergrads are mostly young, and without kids. It is unusual for them to visit a doctor. Jesus Christ. Please don't take this as a personal attack but it boggles my mind that in 2019 this is a situation accepted as perfectly normal by a large number of people. In many countries in the west, this is not even a question that arises. I assume you are based in the US? That someone has to make…
It doesn't matter what country you live in, if you are between 15 and 30, and don't have kids: you are extremely unlikely to need a doctor at all. These are the healthiest years of your life.