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Risk Everything (2007)

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Re: Risk Everything (2007)

#111

Post by jrochkind1 »

randyrand wrote: post #107
buro9 wrote: post #66

I had to do this when young... I was homeless, rough sleeping. Honestly... it's a terrible piece of advice. Those risking everything have no other choice. If you're reading this person's blog post, if you're on HN... you probably have a choice, and you probably aren't "risking everything". I cannot imagine anyone on here actually choosing to potentially have nothing at all, no network, no funds, no assets, no nothing…

> Middle class kids can afford one throw. *self funded Once you have decent funding, the wealth of your parents shouldn’t impact you very much.

Some things it impacts includes:

1) Your safety net. If you lose, will they help you out so you at least aren't totally destitute?

2) Your social/professional network, and (correlationally) your access/ability to develop one, or funders and other technical assistance.

Re: Risk Everything (2007)

#112

Post by moffkalast »

pid-1 wrote: post #104
dskloet wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel the urge to just post the wiki entry for the Kelly criterion. Apparently not that strong of an urge ;-). For those (like me) who didn't know it yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion

> It is valid when the expected returns are known Sounds like a great way to lose money.

I'm sure this is referring to the expected value in something like say, a dice throw. If the chances of winning when picking a certain number are 1/6 and the payoff is 6x the investment then the expected returns after a large mount of attempts are known and would be zero. I'm sure this is widely applicable in gambling.

Re: Risk Everything (2007)

#113

Post by NoraCodes »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #109
buro9 wrote: post #66

I had to do this when young... I was homeless, rough sleeping. Honestly... it's a terrible piece of advice. Those risking everything have no other choice. If you're reading this person's blog post, if you're on HN... you probably have a choice, and you probably aren't "risking everything". I cannot imagine anyone on here actually choosing to potentially have nothing at all, no network, no funds, no assets, no nothing…

I guess one lesson is that for a lot people what seems like "risking everything" isn't really risking everything at all, you will in fact probably still be fine (and not homeless rough sleeping) even if you "lose". This isn't the way the advice was framed, and I think you are right that it should be -- but the reframed advice can still be good -- I don't know about for startups, I think most startups are BS, and the…

> Those who actually risk everything, like, their lives (say, refugees in boats) do so because the alternative is existentially intolerable. The comparison to entrepeneurs is just... not actually ok.

This is a great summary of the problems with this analogy, thank you. It's always annoyed me when people excuse the bad behavior of landlords and bosses exploiting low-income people with "well, they took a huge financial risk buying that building or starting that business!" Sure they did, but it was a risk to their ability to buy fancy organic steaks, not to their ability to continue breathing oxygen - and if it an unprofitable business investment _was_ going to put them on the street, then they should just go get a job like everyone else. The risks taken by landlord and tenant, by boss and laborer, are not comparable.

Re: Risk Everything (2007)

#114

Post by vsareto »

pid-1 wrote: post #104
dskloet wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I feel the urge to just post the wiki entry for the Kelly criterion. Apparently not that strong of an urge ;-). For those (like me) who didn't know it yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion

> It is valid when the expected returns are known Sounds like a great way to lose money.

Not to mention the rules are known in gambling, such as required minimum bets. Business has no such courtesy. The criterion is worthless if your small bets always result in failures because you need capital to get going.

Re: Risk Everything (2007)

#115

Post by bryanrasmussen »

kqr wrote: post #34
oarabbus_ wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(If death truly had negative infinity utility, it would overpower the benefit of everything and we couldn't do anything.) It's true death has utility in an economic sense, as one needs not look further than the funeral/death care industry to find utility. But if we are talking about death of the self, the negative infinite utility claim seems more convincing than the non-negative-infinite one. In fact, negative infi…

I am talking about death of the self. When crossing the street, there's a tiny risk of death, but a fairly good chance of a somewhat desirable outcome (getting to the other side.) If you considered your death to have negative infinity utility, and the desirable outcome to have finite positive utility, then you would opt to not cross the street ever, because negative infinity times small probability plus positive fini…

at some point the chance of dying not crossing the street and crossing the street are equal.

Re: Risk Everything (2007)

#116

Post by moffkalast »

boffinism wrote: post #65

"But it dawns on me that luck is just the product of all these other qualities" This, to me, highlights the flaw in the whole article. They nearly died. They were saved by a chance encounter with a friendly boat. This encounter was SO OBVIOUSLY not a product of their own motivation, boldness or any of the rest of that guff. This is the worst form of survivor bias.

Yeah, even from his perspective it's survivorship bias. The sailboat captains that got jumped by a dinghy full of AK47 wielding pirates aren't around to write deluded articles.

Re: Risk Everything (2007)

#119

Post by [deleted] »

psychstudio wrote: post #108
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Poor kids aren't visiting the carnival. They're the ones working it. Speaking for myself, I'm kinda priviledged in working in the carnival, it's a good and steady income and I'm accumulating wealth, meaning I'm in a more economically privileged position than my parents and their parents were (housing crisis / cost of living aside, of course, sigh). That can, down the line, if I feel like it, be used as a springboa…

And then you miss. You're 50 and broke. Back to square 1.

[deleted]

Re: Risk Everything (2007)

#120

Post by boredumb »

buro9 wrote: post #66

I had to do this when young... I was homeless, rough sleeping. Honestly... it's a terrible piece of advice. Those risking everything have no other choice. If you're reading this person's blog post, if you're on HN... you probably have a choice, and you probably aren't "risking everything". I cannot imagine anyone on here actually choosing to potentially have nothing at all, no network, no funds, no assets, no nothing…

"Risking everything" in a literal since, sure. Most people mean Risk everything non-essential and all of your gains. If you have 5,000$ saved up above your necessities to live, "Risking Everything" would be more in line with investing it all into AAPL, or investing it all into a food cart, not maxing out your credit cards and soaking family members or putting your family home up as collateral.

"poor kids" or people that don't have a ton of surplus savings can visit the casino, they just aren't playing the high stakes tables, they are playing penny slots.

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