Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#91

Post by dr_dshiv » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 3:48 PM UTC

mcv wrote: post #27

dr_dshiv wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an American transplant to Amsterdam, here's my take: The Dutch have embedded innovation/entrepreneurship so deeply into their society, it looks very different from American-style innovation. There are so many little innovative things here that startups would never get to. It is continuous, but not relentless -- as in, it occurs within the paradigm of working hours. Further, it tends to reflect the systemic intelli…

> "garbage pickup (yes! It's so futuristic!)" Is our garbage pickup futuristic? It's certainly efficient and practical (which are probably the most important and most typically Dutch values), but there's nothing about underground containers that's out of reach for other countries. I think much of our innovation and efficiency is actually in government organisations, from garbage pickup to our efficient and well-maint…

Trashmen collecting garbage with an Xbox controller and giant claw? In a neon jumpsuit? Yes. That's futuristic.

I hope NYC adopts the system. I agree, it is totally within reach.

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#92

Post by danjac » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 3:53 PM UTC

protonfish wrote: post #57

ido wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting! Anecdotally I'm an Israeli who moved to Europe (first Austria then Germany) and at least from my layman's perspective both of these countries seem both a lot less entrepreneurial than Israel and a lot less corrupt... So I wonder if something unusual is going on or if one or more of my perceptions are wrong.

I think there is a difference between "informal" corruption (where some officials need to be bribed) and the "institutionalized" corruption of a monolithic and completely unnecessary bureaucracy. At least in the first instance, there is a path to get things done. European bureaucracy is a tar pit where innovative business goes to die.

> European bureaucracy is a tar pit where innovative business goes to die.

There are 27/28 economies in the EU alone, ranging from Sweden to Greece, with very different cultures, laws and bureaucratic competencies, some of whom have successfully incubated very innovative businesses.

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#93

Post by lazyjones » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 4:14 PM UTC

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.

You just "proved" that it's a family thing.

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#94

Post by hogFeast » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 4:21 PM UTC

Hm, sounds interesting but looking at rates of entrepreneurship in Fig 1. amongst the top are (you can't really tell because they are so jammed together): Vanuatu, Yemen, Cameroon, Zambia, Uganda...I am not sure how smart it is reason about entrepreneurship in a developed economy against these nations (and the difference between rates within this chart suggest to me that most variance is going to be a function of income level).

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#95

Post by throw0101a » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 4:34 PM UTC

Someone once observed / joked that it may be a result of natural selection:

A lot of the people that left the proverbial Old World for (e.g.) the US were often the most hopeful, so that's why the US is (stereotypically) optimistic. The people that stayed behind were the ones that were more dour and/or laid back.

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#96

Post by novaleaf » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

adim86 wrote: post #70

kayaeb wrote: post #14

There's a good book on this called "Why Nations Fail," [1] they posit that extractive economic policies (corrupted governments) essentially de-incentivize entrepreneurial businesses, while inclusive policies cause them to thrive. They use this argument to counter "Guns, Germs, and Steel" [2] to explain dramatic economic differences across country borders in similar environments. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/sho…

Well if those are the two measures then this paper would be wrong. 5 out of the top 10 most entrepreneurial countries according to this paper is in Sub Saharan Africa where government corruption is very high and there the inclusive policies are hit or miss...mostly miss while the US is number 46 on the list. As someone that has worked in both regions, the USA is waaaay easier to do business than Sub Saharan Africa bu…

having started by-the-book (software) businesses in both Thailand and the USA I agree.

In both countries it's very easy to build/run unofficial businesses. But running a legal business is very different. In Thailand, I needed to hire a full time bookkeeper plus 3 weeks/year of an accountant just to run a 5 person business, and still needed to suffer through 2 weeks/year of government audits. In the USA, I can do everything myself (about 2 weeks/year of tax/bureaucracy overhead)

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#97

Post by hogFeast » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

armada651 wrote: post #26

ido wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting! Anecdotally I'm an Israeli who moved to Europe (first Austria then Germany) and at least from my layman's perspective both of these countries seem both a lot less entrepreneurial than Israel and a lot less corrupt... So I wonder if something unusual is going on or if one or more of my perceptions are wrong.

I think your perception that Germany is a lot less entrepreneurial is incorrect. It's probably due to the fact Germany focuses a lot more on industry technology rather than consumer-facing tech.

Look at the data. Even within the EU, Germany is behind the level you would expect based on every indicator (institutions, education, productivity, etc.).

And this is basically a function of Germany's economic development. Germany industrialised quickly by extracting from consumers. Forced savings, cheap loans to entrepreneurs, etc. The model isn't optimised for competition and new entry.

Germany hasn't really moved on from that point. Industry and banking is still heavily concentrated (the level of corporatism is far beyond anything outside of East Asia). Capital markets still don't really exist (amazingly, given current ECB policy). Consumers are still paying a massive surplus over to the corporate sector (through low wages and forced saving).

Rocket Internet is the kind of exception that proves the rule. They were successful but only by doing something totally inexplicable in any other context (i.e. their shareholding model is a function of the awful state of finance in Germany).

Definitely, the govt have trying very hard on this for a while. But with no real results because the model seems to produce what voters want. There are signs that things are coming apart (particularly in banking) but before that point, nothing will change. It just makes no sense to compare Germany to an entrepreneurial society, that has never been the goal.

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#98

Post by Analemma_ » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 4:49 PM UTC

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 don't have any proof or even tangible evidence of this, but anecdotally I wonder if, even though Seattle has a lot of tech workers, they're a self-selecting population of tech workers who don't want to be entrepreneurs.

I'm in Seattle, and I've worked at Microsoft, Amazon, and a couple of smaller companies, and I've run across quite a few people who could've gone to either Seattle or the Valley, and deliberately picked the former because they didn't want to participate in the startup rat race and just wanted a stable job.

And of course, this trend would be a positive feedback loop over time: the more the Valley is associated with entrepreneur culture and Seattle is not, the more that potential entrepreneurs go to the Valley and the day-jobbers go to Seattle, which reinforces the original perception.

Again, this is all guesswork, but it does line up with my anecdotal experience.

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#99

Post by cambalache » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 4:50 PM UTC

jdm2212 wrote: post #75

jmkd wrote: post #17

Always worth zooming out and considering this study that relates average temperature to economic production, claiming 13C as a sweet spot https://www.nature.com/articles/nature15725

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…

Is Alaska a big outlier inside the US regarding equality? Because the US as a whole is nowhere near the level of Norway in terms of equality. As a matter of fact Russia has a lower Gini coefficient. Even in the Americas US is below Canada, Uruguay, Argentina among other and almost parity with Venezuela.

The problem in Venezuela is that the state has been weak and ineffective. Weak != Small, you have this suffocating bureaucracy which does nothing.

Re: Why Are Some Societies More Entrepreneurial than Others?

#100

Post by wazoox » Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 4:58 PM UTC

In his very interesting book "Kicking away the ladder", the Korean economist Han Joon-Chang quotes US merchants discovering Japan for the first time in the 1860s. They all marvelled at how lazy the Japanese were. Surprising, isn't it?

Fact is that 1860's Japan lacked all sort of resources, particularly natural ones. In the absence of resources, there isn't much that you can do to bootstrap yourself. With all the workers you need and the money to pay them, you can't build a house if there isn't any timber, mortar and bricks. Therefore, you're better off simply doing nothing, or things that don't require much, like playing music and writing poetry.