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I am done. I give up

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Re: I am done. I give up

#851

Post by vidarh »

starkd wrote: post #659
vidarh wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started my first couple of companies in Norway, and it certainly makes a difference to the feeling of risk to live in a place where the risk of failing just didn't enter my mind at all. In fact, I'd almost certainly have gotten more a month in welfare support if I'd been unable to find a new job if we'd closed my first company down than what we paid ourselves.

There's a flip side to this argument in that more failing endeavors would be allowed to exist for longer, thus draining productive resources from more worthy endeavors.

I don't think so. It's not cheaper to run a company in Norway than the US, and cost of living is high, and the fact we could've shut the company down and get more money meant we only kept running it because we were hoping to make more money rather than out of fear of where we'd be if it failed.

The benefits if anything serves as an incentive to give up failing ventures sooner.

Re: I am done. I give up

#853

Post by Jochim »

kortilla wrote: post #813
JohnBooty wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sarcasm noted. Seriously, though, this is somewhat easy to explain. Much of America does have an amazing "safety net": generational wealth. There's a reason why startups tend to spring from elite schools like Stanford, MIT, Yale, etc. Those kids have the brains, yes, but also the family connections and the parental safety nets and the connections to capital investment. These kids don't have to worry about food securi…

Generational wealth doesn’t cover it. Stanford, MIT, Yale have lots of non-legacy attendees there based completely on academic performance. > That's more than all of Scandinavia's population combined. Goes a long way toward explaining why so many "big" startups come from the USA. Expand it to all of the European countries with free healthcare to match the populations and the outcome is the same. There is some subset…

While this may be true for individual cases. Statistically the argument is worthless. Frankly, it's a comforting lie that encourages harmful inaction by instilling a false sense of the playing field being close to even.

The children of the top 1% make up 14.5% of the admissions to these schools. The chart of students by parental income[0] speaks for itself.

The children of the bottom 20% make up a mere 3.8% of the student body. I'm not sure how anyone can look at the current situation and suggest there's nothing wrong with it.

Perhaps these people are inherently inferior? Instead, I would suggest that we should do something about the talent that we're intentionally wasting.

[0] Chetty R. et al, Figure I. B, MOBILITY REPORT CARDS: THE ROLE OF COLLEGES IN INTERGENERATIONAL MOBILITY, Page 80. url: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w23618/w236..., image: https://i.redd.it/tbh2qmozodv91.png

Re: I am done. I give up

#854

Post by MarcelOlsz »

Don't worry I'm the same way but with 10x your level of failure. I am done with tech and money and every cunt obsessed with any variation of these two things.

The mistake you made was thinking you were going to make free money by click clacking at a keyboard like all these other keyboard warrior stories you read. Don't worry, I made the exact same mistake for 15 years straight. The part we probably missed is being born well connected with family members that can give you $50k on a whim.

No ivy and no connections = no chance. It was designed this way.

We had no chance.

Re: I am done. I give up

#855

Post by neycoda »

This is why there needs to be good jobs, wages, and benefits, so that so many people aren't feeling like they have to be entrepreneurs to have a good life. These things have been undercut over the decades to maximize profit for the few. Not everybody can be an entrepreneur, but most entrepreneurs need good worker, and they typically far outnumber the entrepreneurs. Workers make the entrepreneurs money, and need to be treated well. Treat them well, and you'll have less people trying to compete with you, and more wanting to help you build your dream and benefit from with you.

Re: I am done. I give up

#856

Post by [deleted] »

philippz wrote: post #57

You got a lot of good advice here. So I'll keep it short. I'm 32 now. I spent my last 12 years building companies. They all failed; I didn't earn a penny, and I didn't even get venture capital, and it made me feel like a failure. And I'm talking serious attempts. 6 years, 2 years, 1 year and in between a lot of research & freelancing to evaluate other ideas. I'm leading a 40 people team, and it's going well. How did…

[deleted]

Re: I am done. I give up

#857

Post by [deleted] »

throwawaybbq1 wrote: post #263
philippz wrote: post #57

You got a lot of good advice here. So I'll keep it short. I'm 32 now. I spent my last 12 years building companies. They all failed; I didn't earn a penny, and I didn't even get venture capital, and it made me feel like a failure. And I'm talking serious attempts. 6 years, 2 years, 1 year and in between a lot of research & freelancing to evaluate other ideas. I'm leading a 40 people team, and it's going well. How did…

How did you sustain yourself during periods of failure?

[deleted]

Re: I am done. I give up

#858

Post by LastTrain »

pc86 wrote: post #596
doctorwho42 wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the poor kid learns plumbing from his dad." ..........

That doesn't mean his dad's a plumber, it means his dad showed him some basic plumbing and he took an interest in it that later turned into a career. That's fairly basic reading comprehension so the "........." like I'm an idiot isn't necessary when you're the one adding a bunch of additional context that isn't there. And let's not forget it's a made up example.

Yeah if we want to speculate on what was left unsaid the only limit is our imagination. Maybe the dad is a wizard or a ninja or something.

It is not just a made up example, it is an outlier, which is why it is so adorable.

Re: I am done. I give up

#859

Post by pembrook »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #838
pavlov wrote: post #833

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently moved back to Finland after a couple of years in New York, and I strongly disagree with this: > “high cost of living (like living in NYC/SF but without all the opportunities)” My fixed monthly expenses were over 3x higher in Manhattan than in Helsinki. Housing, child care, etc.

Were the local salaries 3x higher in Manhattan?

In my experience, yes.
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