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Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

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Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#81

Post by screye »

The answer is a resounding yes from me.

The phenomenon cannot be more obvious when viewed at state levels in India. The Gujarati and Marwadi communities are far more enterprising than others in India. This is while the federal rules that all communities live under remain the same.

Anecdotally, the cause for this seems to neatly fall out of my conversations with friends from these communities.

There is cultural weight to being a person who doesn't work for someone else. There is cultural pride in ownership that does not exist in most others.

On the other hand, Maharashtrians seem to value being able to separate work and life. Being able to sleep without worrying about your enterprise and knowing that the same reliable amount will be deposited in your account every month is considered important.

These fundamental differences manifest even when people live under other geographical, political and economical variables.

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#82

Post by dctoedt »

ch4s3 wrote: post #72
cpursley wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the down votes (maybe they are anti-Israel?). Heck, I'm pretty libertarian but see the value in a mandatory military service. There's many lessons to be learned in an environment like that including how to effectively work together, take initiative as well as the lifelong relationships you create.

Doesn’t mandatory service violate the Non-Agression Principle[1]? It is after all coercive by definition. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle

The Non-Aggression Principle has its limits, mainly that we humans are by nature self-centered and tend to short-term, me-focused thinking; we therefore sometimes need to be compelled to do things we don't want to do, sometimes for our own good and sometimes for the good of the society that provides us with the opportunities to do what we do want to do. By analogy, parents know better than young kids what's best for them and for the family; likewise, for some things (I stress some), individuals probably aren't the best judges of what's best for us personally, let alone for the society as a whole that provides the framework for our individual choices.

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#83

Post by coldtea »

repolfx wrote: post #80
coldtea wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You'd really need to calculate "successful entrepreneur per 100,000 people" or something like that. Even that wouldn't be enough, because the supporting apparatus and immediate market for a Dutch entrepreneur would be still very much smaller than for a US based on - so Dutch entrepreneurs should expect less support and not as good environment for their steps to grow their company, even if as a ratio there are e.g.…

You're assuming you can know (or rather, that a bureaucracy can know) what the 'correct' size for any given business is. Google is a medium sized company by many measures. There are companies with far more employees, offices, and physical footprint for example. Who are you to say that this company is a "behemoth" but for example Volkswagen ($221 billion of yearly revenues) is not? Where is the line drawn? I think a l…

>You're assuming you can know (or rather, that a bureaucracy can know) what the 'correct' size for any given business is.

No, I assume I know what kind of businesses I prefer to deal with, and that is smaller...

>Google is a medium sized company by many measures. There are companies with far more employees, offices, and physical footprint for example. Who are you to say that this company is a "behemoth" but for example Volkswagen ($221 billion of yearly revenues) is not? Where is the line drawn?

Wherever the people and their votes/laws want to draw it, with as many exceptions to the rule as they like?

>I think a lot of entrepreneurs are motivated by the thoughts of huge success. If a government says that success will be punished the moment two-bit competitors complain (as e.g. tiny websites that nobody ever cared about complained about Google Shopping), then why set out on the arduous journey to create a big firm?

Well, then don't. That's fine by me (people not setting out "to create a big firm"), and would be totally OK in my perfect world.

Now those are personal preferences. But ,y main point is not communism but democracy: people being asked, and being able to decide and set course for the society they like.

As opposed to letting the "laws of historical materialism" (communism), the fuhrer (fascism), or "the invisible hand of the market" (capitalism) decide for them...

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#84

Post by jdm2212 »

oblio wrote: post #79
jdm2212 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe the conventionally accepted explanation for this is Acemoglu's, and it's that GDP is an Nth-order effect of climate. Warm weather -> highly productive agriculture -> landholders become extremely wealthy -> oligarchic government -> low GDP. Think of the American North and South before the Civil War, where slavery and inequality took hold in the highly agriculturally productive South but never in the North. T…

Counter-point : Russia.

> The exceptions prove the rule: Alaska and Norway were both established, egalitarian societies before the oil was found, in contrast with Middle Eastern petrostates, Russia and Venezuela.

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#85

Post by azepoi »

mocha_nate wrote: post #55
prepend wrote: post #5

I think it has something with redemption and new identities. I think societies that allow reboots lead to greater risk taking. Also capital and risk distribution. I visited Amsterdam and was interested in their history and how it took off after the invention of the corporation. Corporations can end and the knowledge from them can go into a new venture (redemption). They can also raise capital through distributed owne…

I agree 100%. Also, fun fact: the Netherlands had the first stock corporation ever: “east India trading company”

Allegedly there were isolated precursors before the Netherlands, namely in Toulouse. Granted it really took off in the Netherlands. It seems the concept was invented independantly serveral times.

http://blog.yalebooks.com/2015/08/11/the-worlds-first-corpor...

https://qz.com/219270/bazacle/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazacle_Milling_Company

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03044...

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#86

Post by tempsy »

Anyone find it strange how few tech startups come out of Seattle despite all the tech workers? It is the land of the big tech co and big tech co satellite offices, and can think of few actual startups and believe it comes in low as far as VC dollars go (will find source)

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#87

Post by filereaper »

tempsy wrote: post #86

Anyone find it strange how few tech startups come out of Seattle despite all the tech workers? It is the land of the big tech co and big tech co satellite offices, and can think of few actual startups and believe it comes in low as far as VC dollars go (will find source)

I'd say it has to do with these three points:

- Ownership of IP: IP produced in your own time on your own equipment doesn't belong to your employer.

- Non-competes: Not enforceable in CA

- Access to capital: Plenty in CA.

I'd say the first two points are what differentiate Silicon Valley from the rest of the tech capitals.

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#89

Post by tempsy »

filereaper wrote: post #87
tempsy wrote: post #86

Anyone find it strange how few tech startups come out of Seattle despite all the tech workers? It is the land of the big tech co and big tech co satellite offices, and can think of few actual startups and believe it comes in low as far as VC dollars go (will find source)

I'd say it has to do with these three points: - Ownership of IP: IP produced in your own time on your own equipment doesn't belong to your employer. - Non-competes: Not enforceable in CA - Access to capital: Plenty in CA. I'd say the first two points are what differentiate Silicon Valley from the rest of the tech capitals.

Ok but fairly certain NYC and Boston attract multiples more VC dollars as well vs Seattle, and at least can think of far more startups out of those cities than Seattle. I don’t think it’s just a state specific thing.

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#90

Post by nitwit005 »

simonh wrote: post #65
bluedino wrote: post #61

It's just a culture thing. My neighbors are Lebanese, almost everyone in the family either owns a store, or works for one of the other people in their store. Only a few of them have 9 to 5 jobs not related to the family. They help each other out, you can use my van to pick things up, you can use the corner of my store to start your own store, etc.

My wife is Chinese and Chinese people are the same way. Families treat resources in a much more communal way than my UK family, but also outside the family networking and personal social bonds are crucial to getting things done and finding new business opportunities. I suspect this is how it is across most of the world though. If you can't rely on 'society' and particularly the government or legal system, you find wa…

There's a danger of only seeing the portion of the culture that left their country with the intent to start a business.

I see a decent number of Japanese businessmen where I am. I know they're not at exactly representative of Japan. They're part of companies that thought investing in Silicon Valley would be a good idea and were willing to move here.

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