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Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

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Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#51

Post by msrpotus »

suresk wrote: post #27
jcromartie wrote: post #9

Countries with much broader safety nets for entrepreneurs are not producing the risky innovative companies that America is. But, as far as I can tell, health insurance really is the biggest factor keeping people from starting new companies. For myself and my peers, with new families and houses and student debt, etc., it's the one thing that scares us more than anything else. The prospect of a business going under is…

Countries with much broader safety nets for entrepreneurs are not producing the risky innovative companies that America is. Could this be because countries with broader safety nets also have more regulation and make it hard to fire people? I've always kind of thought a combination of making it easy to hire people and let them go, along with strong safety nets (ie, good unemployment insurance and not having health car…

I think the Netherlands tried something similar. Not sure if it really worked.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#52

Post by tomkinstinch »

heyjonboy wrote: post #7
dmix wrote: post #4

We'll the USA already has the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Maybe if they were paying less in taxes, startups would have more money for health insurance for their employees? All entrepreneurs know that they can get better employee retention with health care policy. If companies could afford it, then would there not be a higher incentive to provide it? That being said, I believe national health insurance is…

Startups don't forgo health insurance because it's expensive, they forgo it because purchasing health insurance is a gigantic, time-consuming pain in the ass.

To be fair, it is damn expensive.

The BLS lists benefits as roughly 30% of total compensation[1]. Much of that goes to healthcare.

So for a developer earning $100k in total compensation (say $70k salary, $30k benefits), healthcare costs for that one employee might be $25k+. Providing a good policy for employees (and their families) is expensive. Worth it to care for the team, but still expensive.

To the people skipping coverage in the US: it's stupid and not worth the risk. You may be healthy, but you cannot control everything that impacts your health. Infectous disease happens. Car crashes happen. Skipping coverage is playing Russian roulette.

That said, I'm young and am fortunate to still be covered under the policy of my parents. Perhaps the college years and shortly after are best for trying a startup--while family coverage is still in effect. Then, or after you're married to someone and are under his or her policy.

1. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/eci.pdf

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#53

Post by stdbrouw »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #5

OK, so, I am ardently socially liberal, and I've had a man-crush on Jon Stewart that hasn't waned ever since his appearance on Crossfire. But. I don't think that decreasing risk will result in more entrepreneurship. I would support a wider social safety net for entrepreneurs -- er, business owners -- on principle alone, because I think what we should be saying is that these people are vitally important to our economy…

Sure, there's people who want to be entrepreneurs and people who don't, but to me it seems like the situation is perfectly analogous to supply and demand and consumer surplus. Most people, if they want something, they'll buy it at any price they consider to be reasonable. Why? Because they really want it – just like people really want to be entrepreneurs, or don't. But lo and behold, when the price of a consumer good goes up, demand almost invariably goes down, because for some people, the cost/benefit equation did change just enough to make it (not) worth it.

I know many, many people in Europe that have dreams of starting a company or startup, but without ready access to venture capital, making that dream a reality suddenly becomes much, much harder. So you compromise, and you focus on other dreams that are more attainable.

Yes, human psychology might be an important factor in deciding whether someone wants to be an entrepreneur or not, but people's attitudes are generally not as black and white as you make them out to be.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#54

Post by stretchwithme »

[deleted] wrote: post #41
jcromartie wrote: post #9

Countries with much broader safety nets for entrepreneurs are not producing the risky innovative companies that America is. But, as far as I can tell, health insurance really is the biggest factor keeping people from starting new companies. For myself and my peers, with new families and houses and student debt, etc., it's the one thing that scares us more than anything else. The prospect of a business going under is…

[deleted]

If that were true, eliminating all risk would lead to an explosion of risk taking. But it doesn't. Plenty of trust fund babies face no risks and accomplish nothing.

Of course, another way to look at things is to realize that taking no risks is the biggest risk of all. If one wishes to sit and wait for life to do whatever to you, you can always do that.

Don't go to school, don't strive. Don't ever invest in anything that isn't 100% guaranteed.

No, there is already incentive to take risk.

If anything, the government "help" we've gotten so far makes it harder to take risks. Just ask the people with student loans or those in an upside down mortgage if that helps them take risks.

Those programs are designed to help the person that goes down a specific track, not help the person who thinks different.

And those programs don't even actually help once they are converted into corporate welfare.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#55

Post by dxbydt »

blago wrote: post #20

So sad that in the US people like him host comedy shows.

I don't know what you are talking about. The Daily Show is not comedy. Its where everybody under the age of 30 gets the news from. Fox News - now that's comedy. Seriously, they crack me up. And if you want tragedy, there's always MSNBC. CNN - I don't know what that is - maybe comedians trying their hand at tragedy. You see their chief mascot Anderson Cooper standing knee deep in flood water, or being blown around by stormy winds, or sweating it out in tropical weather, and seriously wonder about his health and well being.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#56

Post by shykes »

arohner wrote: post #31

The US already has the most lenient bankruptcy law in the world. It already has the highest "social tolerance" for entrepreneurial failure. I'm in great health, and young, so I'm not worried about saving for retirement (yet). But starting a company is still really damned hard. It's years of hard work, too much time at the office, too much time away from friends and family. Too much fear that tomorrow no customers wil…

As an entrepreneur I agree that it's very hard and not everybody is cut for it. But I also believe a lot of people who are cut for it might never find out, because they are not given an opportunity to try.

Improving healthcare coverage for aspiring entrepreneurs would level the playing field and expand the pool of potential entrepreneurs. And that would in turn create more wealth for all of us to enjoy.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#57

Post by paulgb »

JonLim wrote: post #36
abbasmehdi wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries with much broader safety nets for entrepreneurs are not producing the risky innovative companies that America is. This could also be a culture thing. When I was in Canada until 5.5 years ago the golden ticket was to work for a big co. I was an ECE major and the top employer of choice was, even for me, BC Hydro (power company). I have no idea anymore why I'd have thought like that, but maybe now I am brainwa…

In my opinion, this state of mind still exists in Canada. Entrepreneurship is being celebrated, but the default for many, many students is to get a job with a large corporation and get your stripes.

It's changing, at least in the Waterloo area. When I started university, the smartest kids were crossing the border to work for Google and Microsoft. By the time I graduated, most of the smartest kids were going to startups or doing their own.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#58

Post by sodafountan »

I think that this would result in hundreds of thousands of bad ideas hitting the marketplace and then the government having to bail out all of the crap that didn't succeed. Risk is there for a reason, it's to stop you from doing something stupid, to make you think twice about the decision you're about to make. I don't believe that we need government to bail out risk takers... not with the amount of national debt that we already have.

You know what happend the last time there was no risk? Banks lended out sub-prime mortgages to just about anyone with a job that walked in the door. You know why they were able to do this? Because those sub-prime loans where bundled up and then sold off to investment banks which then packaged them as mortgage-backed securities. We all know how that one turned out... Risk is a necessary part of life, we need to accept it.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#59

Post by astrodust »

jkeel wrote: post #26
Nogwater wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that starting a business isn't for everyone. I'm doubtful that I would enjoy it, but I would like to be an early employee at a company. If that company can't afford health coverage, then I can't take that risk for my family. It just baffles me that health coverage is so tied to where you work. What if you could only send your kids to the schools that your employer selected, or eat at the restaurants the your…

What I think would be a better solution that could fit in everyone's worldview (those that want a more socialized health care system and those who don't want a powerful federal government) is to have cities provide a public health insurance option that a person or business could buy into. I think that the risk pool would be large and the members would be local (thus giving more rights to local communities rather than…

You could do it on a state-by-state basis, where each may provide a differing level of coverage but all of them would provide at least a base-line care for citizens that are residents of that state.

This could lead to a form of "competition" where some states might provide perks to help encourage people to migrate there from other parts of the country or make it more attractive for prospective employers.

This is the way it's done in Canada. Each province has differing rules as to what's covered, but emergency treatment and preventative care is never impaired by cost or a lack of insurance.

Re: Jon Stewart: Lower entrepreneurial risk

#60

Post by dxbydt »

thaumaturgy wrote: post #5

OK, so, I am ardently socially liberal, and I've had a man-crush on Jon Stewart that hasn't waned ever since his appearance on Crossfire. But. I don't think that decreasing risk will result in more entrepreneurship. I would support a wider social safety net for entrepreneurs -- er, business owners -- on principle alone, because I think what we should be saying is that these people are vitally important to our economy…

>most people don't want to run their own business no matter how safe you make it. I've spent the last few years encouraging people around me to start or run or improve their businesses, but so many of them ... don't want to deal with all of the other aspects of running a business.

True dat. But you point this out as if it is some moral failing on their part. People generally don't want to do uninteresting stuff. "all of the other aspects of running a business" is seriously uninteresting.

Its why I don't have a dog - am not interested in picking up dog poop :)

If its about the money...I have made 5-6 figures from simple butterflies & straddles - took me less than half hour to devise, and then I just wait for the right mkt opportunity to come along.

If its about independence, not working for anybody etc...my boss used to say that while I only have 1 boss (ie. him ), he has infinite bosses ( ie. all the customers of the company ). So I don't see what the big advantage is in being accountable to the masses of the planet because of some bug in some stupid software.

There's trons of things infinitely more interesting than being an entrepreneur - Family. Mathematics. Physics. CS.

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