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Towards an Untrepreneurial Economy? Rise of the Veblenian Entrepreneur (2019)

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Re: Towards an Untrepreneurial Economy? Rise of the Veblenian Entrepreneur (2019)

#61

Post by someguyorother »

sbierwagen wrote: post #55
scottishcow wrote: post #41

So universities are conspicuous consumption, internships are conspicuous consumption, entrepreneurship is conspicuous consumption. Perhaps the simple fact is that most people are motivated by the need for social validation, and only a tiny tiny fraction of the population is driven instead by things like intellectual curiosity, desire to help others / solve societal problems, etc. So any class of activity that becomes…

No. All human endeavour is social signalling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_theory

I'm naturally suspicious of this kind of reductionism, because it so easily shades into unfalsifiability.

"Everything you do is either because of X, or you believe it's for some other reason but your subconscious does it because of X anyway."

Re: Towards an Untrepreneurial Economy? Rise of the Veblenian Entrepreneur (2019)

#62

Post by petra »

Animats wrote: post #40
NicolasGorden wrote: post #33

I read the actual research and it seems to me the authors are confounding a lot of things. I believe people with a decent background in business and economics should see this. A few things that jumped out at me: 1- The rise of specialized services that lower the entrance bars for many industries. 2- The rise of the wantrepreneur. 3- "Inefficient market offerings" that reduce innovation. The answer to these: 1- Yes by…

I've read Veblen's "The Theory of the Leisure Class", and I don't see that it applies here. The author writes: "This rapidly growing industry has transformed the nature of entrepreneurship and encouraged a particular form of low-quality entrepreneurship. It has done so by leveraging the Ideology of Entrepreneurialism to mass-produce and mass-market products that make possible what we term Veblenian Entrepreneurship."…

Many hard useful things, which once we're more accessible to small-scale entrepreneurs, have became scalable industries by using technology and free money.

Solar installations certainly seems that way - it probably runs by big companies/platforms, hiring freelance salesman and installers and offering better financing, web marketing, QA, brand, etc.

And of course this ties to "freelancers on demand" platforms, replacing many entrepreneurs.

Same could go for tree trimmings, maybe by using sat images to find opportunities, and automating the legal, marketing processes.

As for automating plants, there's robots-as-a-service, so this probably creates an opportunity for proven robotic service companies to grow and less for new entrepreneurs.

It may just be that the world just needs far fewer entrepreneurs.

Re: Towards an Untrepreneurial Economy? Rise of the Veblenian Entrepreneur (2019)

#63

Post by notahacker »

neilk wrote: post #22

This is fascinating. In passing, they mention how the highly privileged may conspicuously consume 'immaterial' goods for status, and the less privileged do more traditional conspicuous consumption of expensive goods. So if wantrepreneurism is a form of conspicuous consumption for the privileged - or those who desire to become so - what's the equivalent for the less privileged? I think it has to be MLM and Instagram i…

> So if wantrepreneurism is a form of conspicuous consumption for the privileged - or those who desire to become so - what's the equivalent for the less privileged?

> I think it has to be MLM and Instagram influencing. The wantrepreneur wants to be a mini-Jobs, but the MLM/Insta dreamer wants to be a mini-Kardashian, hawking products with a glamorous image. But their desire is exploited ruthlessly by a system that promises success but will mostly drain their wallet. Nevertheless a lot of them feel the need to keep going, largely because they've publicly bought into the image.

Interesting idea, with the sad conclusion that whilst the average wantrapreneur suffers the opportunity cost of missing out on salary, they might well actually be able to pay themself from some sort of funding and come out with an enhanced CV and personal network, whereas the MLM dreamer who's less able to afford it probably spends more on inventory than they earn on sales and burns their personal network with irritating sales pitches.

Re: Towards an Untrepreneurial Economy? Rise of the Veblenian Entrepreneur (2019)

#64

Post by mandelbrotwurst »

bilbo0s wrote: post #58
neilk wrote: post #22

This is fascinating. In passing, they mention how the highly privileged may conspicuously consume 'immaterial' goods for status, and the less privileged do more traditional conspicuous consumption of expensive goods. So if wantrepreneurism is a form of conspicuous consumption for the privileged - or those who desire to become so - what's the equivalent for the less privileged? I think it has to be MLM and Instagram i…

> Maybe it's about what forms of success one is exposed to and what one sees is popular among one's peers? I wonder if this particular cancer is not more widespread than that? What I mean is this - What if there is a very real perception among the populace, that insta-youtube-dreaming is, in actuality, a good way to make money? Maybe the problem is deeper than simple "peer pressure"? Maybe the issue is that at this p…

Eh, I think most people are aware that the odds are long - imo a more apt comparison would be kids of the past dreaming about being pro athletes or rock stars.

Re: Towards an Untrepreneurial Economy? Rise of the Veblenian Entrepreneur (2019)

#65

Post by somewhereoutth »

I've watched this kind of thing unfolding around where I am now - good to be given words for the somewhat uncomfortable feeling I was having. I'd realised that entrepreneurship was no longer some crazy people in a shed, but instead now an established industry - but I hadn't quite elucidated the precise identity and nature of the customer.

The most egregious example I'd seen was a clearly smart and talented guy ready to torch his budding medical career in order to launch a tourism related startup. Deeply ironic considering subsequent events.

Re: Towards an Untrepreneurial Economy? Rise of the Veblenian Entrepreneur (2019)

#66

Post by notahacker »

Animats wrote: post #40
NicolasGorden wrote: post #33

I read the actual research and it seems to me the authors are confounding a lot of things. I believe people with a decent background in business and economics should see this. A few things that jumped out at me: 1- The rise of specialized services that lower the entrance bars for many industries. 2- The rise of the wantrepreneur. 3- "Inefficient market offerings" that reduce innovation. The answer to these: 1- Yes by…

I've read Veblen's "The Theory of the Leisure Class", and I don't see that it applies here. The author writes: "This rapidly growing industry has transformed the nature of entrepreneurship and encouraged a particular form of low-quality entrepreneurship. It has done so by leveraging the Ideology of Entrepreneurialism to mass-produce and mass-market products that make possible what we term Veblenian Entrepreneurship."…

I'm not sure why you disagree with the second sentence, especially given your followup paragraph.

It doesn't need to divert people from doing 'hard, useful' things to be a form of conspicuous consumption, it just needs people who are willing to accept less than they might otherwise earn in salary to have the social cachet of being a Founder CEO and investors [and sometimes even acquirers] willing to accept lower risk adjusted return to be associated with people and ideas they see as innovative or play golf with other investors in.

If Veblen was born a century he'd be dripping with snark - justified and otherwise - about everything to do with the Valley, probably including a lot of the successful exits.

Re: Towards an Untrepreneurial Economy? Rise of the Veblenian Entrepreneur (2019)

#67

Post by tathougies »

There are two kinds of 'wantrapreneurs': one who wants to build a business that provides services or goods to the public at large and another who wants to build a business that provides services or goods to other wantrepreneurs to increase their social standing. The internet seems filled with the latter, but in reality, there are probably more of the first, methinks.

Re: Towards an Untrepreneurial Economy? Rise of the Veblenian Entrepreneur (2019)

#68

Post by baybal2 »

Enginerrrd wrote: post #57
DenisM wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe it's about what forms of success one is exposed to and what one sees is popular among one's peers? Fashion is fashion. For some it's a rebellion, a coming of age story, for others it's a way to blend in with the peers, be one of the cool guys. On a tangent: many (most?) investors are playing the same game, only by proxy. This is why the VC industry is losing money as a whole - they aren't there for the money.

IMO the VC industry as a whole is losing money because a large fraction of them suffer from luck/survivorship bias & lack the wisdom to recognize that was the key to their past successes, and they all have a serious case of FOMO. A lot of tech hype is just hype and the reality is, if you don't understand a technology and if/why it really is superior to existing solutions, you almost certainly aren't going to make mon…

I always thought that VC funds always had a bit of a cargo cult atmosphere around them.

Re: Towards an Untrepreneurial Economy? Rise of the Veblenian Entrepreneur (2019)

#69

Post by tathougies »

> And society derives no obvious benefits from a profusion of poorly performing ventures.

This is where the paper goes from research to opinion piece. It is easily argued that without the failures, there won't be successes. One can also see that while there are many many business failures, there are also unicorns the likes of which the world has not seen before. It is not obvious at all that not having more failed entrepreneurs is a bad thing. Lower life-time earnings is hardly a social cost. If these entrepreneurs ended up on welfare, then perhaps there is an argument. But if they find a fulfilling life doing what they do, and the consequence is they earn less... what problem is it of mine? Why do I need to derive a benefit from them? That seems to be putting my desire for 'stuff' (intangible or not) over their right to do whatever they want with their life.

More examples of editorializing:

> In contemporary society, the infatuation with entrepreneurs is such that they “are seen as almost having a magical effect on economies—alchemists, whose innovative capacity allows for water to be turned into wine, lead into gold.” (Greene et al, 2008; p. 3). -- citing a source does not make it true

Re: Towards an Untrepreneurial Economy? Rise of the Veblenian Entrepreneur (2019)

#70

Post by pdonis »

scottishcow wrote: post #52
pdonis wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Never said it does Then I don't understand who this question is supposed to be directed at: > Are there any activities left that doesn’t function as a form of conspicuous consumption? My answer would be that none of the activities you list (with the possible exception of the kind of wannabe entrepreneurship the paper is talking about) are conspicuous consumption. But it seemed like you were directing the question a…

> Then I don't understand who this question is supposed to be directed at: To the HN community of course. > My answer would be that none of the activities you list (with the possible exception of the kind of wannabe entrepreneurship the paper is talking about) are conspicuous consumption. That’s a valid response, although I don’t agree. Note that I’m not regarding these activities to be entirely about conspicuous con…

> Note that I’m not regarding these activities to be entirely about conspicuous consumption

If your definition of an activity being conspicuous consumption is that somebody, somewhere, can use it for conspicuous consumption, I think you're right that it's going to be hard to find an activity that isn't "conspicuous consumption" by this definition. But I would say that's a problem with your definition.

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