Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

ourworldindata.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 350 posts

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#61

Post by sterileopinions »

eaenki wrote: post #9

Imo Education is overvalued, Capital is under appreciated, And, Because Capital is trapped into networks, that Capital is squandered among an infinite array of companies employing the talent and producing products that don’t make you, or the planet, better, healthier, smarter or happier. (Apple’s SJ era, Google until 2014~ and Tesla fit the useful smarter happier paradigma, and not many other) My solution is: take a…

>Education is overvalued, Capital is under appreciated

Is this HN satire?

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#62

Post by bumby »

jjoonathan wrote: post #40
PostOnce wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything is a hassle. Building permits, operating licenses, legal compliance, etc. All those things arguably exist for good reasons, but it's a huge hurdle to doing anything useful. I can't have a 20 foot radio tower in town, I can't subdivide smaller than 10 acres outside of town, I can't build any facility out there to operate the experimental tower without building permits, radio licenses, compliance with tracki…

I'm a fan of the chemistry analogy here: you can catalyze (reduce barriers) and you can incentivize (increase rewards). If the incentives point the wrong way, catalyzing won't help. If the barriers are too high, incentivizing won't help. I strongly suspect we're in a "barriers too high" regime rather than an "incentives are too low" regime, and that our money would be better spent reducing barriers than increasing in…

I think I agree but the question seems to be how do we lower the barriers smartly while still keeping the intent of the rules and regulations? Add to it our own bias to put more emphasis on the regulations that concretely prevent us from doing what we want now, rather than those that abstractly benefit us and its easy to point to them being the problem.

It's like the "one mans trash is another mans treasure" cliche, something that you see as an impediment I see as a social good. Finding the right balance is tricky and unfortunately in a polarized political environment it's easy for people to fall into the far sides of the argument.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#63

Post by inimino »

boyadjian wrote: post #13

The talent, was originally a unity of mass and money of Antiquity, so people who have talent, means people who have money.

> talent (n.)

> late 13c., "inclination, disposition, will, desire," from Old French talent (12c.), from Medieval Latin talenta, plural of talentum "inclination, leaning, will, desire" (11c.), in classical Latin "balance, weight; sum of money," from Greek talanton "a balance, pair of scales," hence "weight, definite weight, anything weighed," and in later times sum of money," from PIE *tele- "to lift, support, weigh," "with derivatives referring to measured weights and thence money and payment" [Watkins]; see extol.

So, no. But it's a neat folk etymology even if it isn't quite true.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#64

Post by jeremyjh »

baybal2 wrote: post #54

Invention is overvalued as well as the idea of "creativity." The biggest proof is the current China-USA standoff. USA is on the paper the biggest nation on earth by manufacturing output, but what was the last time you saw made in USA household goods in supermarket without having to specifically look for them? Why China has industrial base and USA doesn't? Wages difference? No, not by a chance. In some places in China…

Even if wages are comparable, are other costs of employment, such as unemployment insurance, healthcare, pay roll tax comparable?

And even if they are comparable now, its true that it no longer matters. The work moved to China because of low wages, and its going to stay there now because all of the labor force and supply chain infrastructure are much better developed. You are quite right those things no longer exist in the US, they have atrophied.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#65

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

easytiger wrote: post #44
zzzcpan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Giving people money at minimum redistributes wealth, so it cannot possibly be any worse, than letting wealth concentrate.

It's a slippery slope as to whom you disenfranchised to redistributed that cash: but it will inevitably be a large group of people in the middle, not the minority elite you sold the policy on. If some people can't accumulate something they can't do bigger things as creators or create bigger markets as consumers.

You won't disenfranchise anyone, because the investment will more than pay for itself. That's the point.

It's just another form of seed funding for ambitious start-ups.

And $30bn/yr is absolutely trivial compared to the opportunity costs of an economy geared more to financialisation and regressive wealth extraction than to productive engineering and invention.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#66

Post by ecorithm »

ericmay wrote: post #60
ecorithm wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds similar enough to the SBIR/STTR program that many federal agencies already have from the NIH and Department of Agriculture too DARPA. Basically a company pitches an idea to a federal agency which if accepted will give you something like 100k (phase 1) to explore the initial idea and place in you in a pipeline that can lead to much more money if the idea seems valuable and doable (phase 2 and phase 3). Thi…

Primarily not a silver bullet in this case because it takes like 6 months and it’s a pretty involved submission. A VC firm just writes you a check. I have personal experience with this. The issue comes down to speed and decision making. The government can’t ever let a single person be responsible for something like this, so there is a lot of CYA.

Phase 1's are really not that hard to get, and the process is not nearly as stifling as you are alluding too. Most people without prior funding or reputation don't just get instant money from VCs. Convincing them to give you money can take a decent amount of time too. Especially if you are trying to do something actually out of the box not just something like "Its like UBER but for ..." Just speculating, but I would bet if you are a just starting out and are not well connected getting a phase 1 would be easier than getting VC funding.

Another major plus is that SBIR's don't have to be the next google. You can get funded for a product with fairly mild potential. VCs only seem to care about the 100x investment.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#67

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

smkellat wrote: post #55
eaenki wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mhh, I simply suspect that a family would rather fund their son’s projects and their friends because of human’s nature, and since one can’t ask a stranger to fund him, and not everyone can be bff with rich dudes, this is probably a problem better solved by the gov

“...and since one can’t ask a stranger to fund him...” That’s been a solved issue since at least the 17th century with joint stock companies. What else is an IPO but asking strangers for money so you can do business?

Sometimes it's a substance-free scammy marketing exercise.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#68

Post by easytiger »

inimino wrote: post #59
easytiger wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you didn't read the test of the comments then. I perfectly justified my comment, what have you contributed

Yes I did, and no you did not. You made a drive-by shoot-down of an innocent idea without suggesting a better one or giving a single valid reason why you feel the idea is bad. If you don't have something to say that will improve the situation then maybe you should not comment.

> Yes I did

No. Not that I can find

> an innocent idea

A random ill thought out idea, that I believe I politely stated doesn't work in reality, or as I pointed out operate in the parameters of reality.

> without suggesting a better one

Why would I have a suggestion for an invented non problem

> giving a single valid reason

Again, not my issue you didn't read

On the topic of unproductive contestation, I think you have ironically become the thing you sought to destroy. So we will leave this here

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#69

Post by bsenftner »

One place talent is not is in the screening process of VC. Attempting to raise money for a new venture is like returning to high school and being confronted by the popular kids demanding to know why you should be allowed into their club. I expected professionalism, and primarily saw immature 1%'ers so transparent in their shallowness, it turned raising funding into a surreal experience leaving bile in my throat.

Re: Talent is everywhere, opportunity is not

#70

Post by sidlls »

eaenki wrote: post #9

Imo Education is overvalued, Capital is under appreciated, And, Because Capital is trapped into networks, that Capital is squandered among an infinite array of companies employing the talent and producing products that don’t make you, or the planet, better, healthier, smarter or happier. (Apple’s SJ era, Google until 2014~ and Tesla fit the useful smarter happier paradigma, and not many other) My solution is: take a…

Often, getting a prototype is the costly part.

I do like your idea. And I'm not some starry eyed millennial or whatever. I'm a crusty gen-Xer who has seen what our parents and peers have wrought and can't help but think we need to do something drastically different.

Post reply on HN