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How to Start Google

paulgraham.com

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Re: How to Start Google

#311

Post by croisillon »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #219

Totally insane. 99% or more of the people who enable Google to do what Google does are employees of Google. Same with every other company. The odds of being the founder of a successful company are probably worse than being a professional sportsball player (if only because they turn over more frequently). Does anything good come from encouraging kids to think that they will manage to sail through life as a successful…

when i was the kids' age, a teacher told us "aim at the stars, you might at least reach the moon" and i always found it motivating

Re: How to Start Google

#312

Post by [deleted] »

gumby wrote: post #188

> If you look at the lists of the richest people that occasionally get published in the press, nearly all of them did it by starting their own companies. Actaally if you look at those lists, the largest number made it by choosing their parents correctly.

[deleted]

Re: How to Start Google

#313

Post by advael »

bigthymer wrote: post #307
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #219

Totally insane. 99% or more of the people who enable Google to do what Google does are employees of Google. Same with every other company. The odds of being the founder of a successful company are probably worse than being a professional sportsball player (if only because they turn over more frequently). Does anything good come from encouraging kids to think that they will manage to sail through life as a successful…

> Does anything good come from encouraging kids to think that they will manage to sail through life as a successful business founder rather than an employee? I think it probably has a lot to do with the US being the number 1 economy in the world so yes, it does appear to have society-wide benefits. Does it have personal benefits? I think this is probably more controversial. I suspect some people push themselves too h…

I think this distills the crux of the equivocation inherent to this kind of reasoning

Being "the number 1 economy in the world" (Actually kind of debatable by some metrics, but that's beside the point) is a measure of the power of the few that hold it, not the general living conditions of the populace. "Society-wide benefits" being the same as having the richest aggregate economy is to say the least pretty dubious

Re: How to Start Google

#314

Post by feedforward »

oli5679 wrote: post #301
gumby wrote: post #188

> If you look at the lists of the richest people that occasionally get published in the press, nearly all of them did it by starting their own companies. Actaally if you look at those lists, the largest number made it by choosing their parents correctly.

https://www.forbes.com/consent/ketch/?toURL=https://www.forb... If I look here, top 20 are 17 founders and 3 heirs (2 Waltons - Walmart, and one Bettencourt - L’Oreal)

So Musk whose father owned diamond mines is not an heir.

Arnault whose father owned Ferret-Savinel is not an heir.

Gates father was a prominent lawyer, his mother was an heiress who was on a board with the chairman of IBM.

Even looking at those who are not classified as heirs - Zuckerberg's high school currently costs over $50,000 a year. Buffett's father was a congressman and his family owned grocery stores. Not billionaires, but people with more wealth and connections then even our minority of upper middle class people.

Re: How to Start Google

#315

Post by toast0 »

vundercind wrote: post #299
toast0 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “Never work again” money is crazy-high for younger folks (like, not already close to qualifying for Medicare) in the US, on account of the costs and financial risks of our healthcare system. Exchange plans are fine enough, and like, they're not that cheap, but they're also not that expensive either. Depending on how much you make from investments on your never have to work again horde, you may be able to qualify fo…

> maybe you can just say if you've got enough to pull $100,000/year, you're good on healthcare too. You’ll be exposed to tens of thousands in risk per year on top of (low) tens of thousands in premiums per year for a family Exchange plan. You’ll be burning nearly half of that (and spending all your free time trying to keep hospitals and insurers taking even more) if one of you gets cancer—or, if it’s you who gets can…

My budget includes the premiums and the individual out of pocket max. If that's not good enough, what number am I supposed to be looking at? My with a spouse budget is just 2x the individual budget, family out of pockets are usually around 2x individual in my neck of the woods, so that doesn't make a big difference; if there's kids, then it would, but the modelling there gets tricky because you've got to figure out what age you're kicking them off the plan (assuming they don't have a debilitating condition that leaves them dependent on you for their whole life... that falls outside my plan).

> You also can’t withdraw at as high a “safe rate” as people planning for an ordinary retirement at ~65 do, because your fund needs to last a lot longer despite inflation and such. $2m isn’t “retire at 35” (… or 45) money. It might be “take a big gamble and maybe get lucky… for a while” money. Or semi-retire money.

The $2 M is the budged accumulation only to pay for premiums and out of pocket until you hit Medicare; and that's assuming a spouse. Budgeting that based on perpetual withdrawl rate gives yet another buffer, because it only has to last until Medicare eligibility age. Yeah, there's unknowns, but whatever. I'm not saying $2 M is enough to accumulate for early retirement. It could be, but a lot of people want to spend more money than that. $2 M doesn't generate that much income, so you'll likely qualify for health plan subsidies, which would help a bit too.

Edit: I used zipcode 98110, birthday for illustration 01/01/1960. Going into the less expensive side of my state, zipcode 99336; there's no blue cross out there, but the most expensive bronze plan for that birthdate is $14,000 / year with the same $9200 out of pocket max. And yeah, limited networks suck ... I'm not going to shop for hypotheticals there --- I'm pretty sure if there's no reasonable in network doctors, you can fight your insurance to get covered at a reasonable doctor, regardless of the insurance and state, and if you're early retired, you'll have time for it.

Re: How to Start Google

#316

Post by paulpauper »

bdangubic wrote: post #305
paulpauper wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the goal is to maximize your chances it would not be to start a company. It would be get a degree from decent school + white collar work for 10-20 years (whilst paying off student loans) + diligently investing in index funds and home ownership. That is how guys are getting rich on Reddit 'FIRE' subs at 30-40-years old, not start-ups.

That can get you rich - not wealthy

depends on definition of wealthy

Re: How to Start Google

#317

Post by babl-yc »

I couldnt finish reading the essay because I was distracted by the generally smug tone of it.

99.99% of people who read this article are not going to start the next Google. Being a successful entrepreneur requires an incredible amount of luck, timing, skill, and risk taking.

If you choose that path, great, but that in no way devalues the skill building, network building, and predictable income of working for someone else.

Re: How to Start Google

#318

Post by fuzzfactor »

YossarianFrPrez wrote: post #70

PG is remarkably consistent in his advice; much of his writing is about developing a nose for "what's missing" and having the chops and resources to attempt a solution. Also, I think 'Google' in this instance is more for motivation rather than a literal comparison. He's leaving out the part that Google was founded by graduate CS students a) looking for a thesis, b) into node-link graphs, and c) inspired by academic c…

>go to grad school to learn how to find scientific-discovery-based startup ideas these days?

Nope, ended up going to scientific-discovery-based-startup-ideas-R-us instead, by client demand.

Re: How to Start Google

#319

Post by amelius »

volkk wrote: post #236
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #219

Totally insane. 99% or more of the people who enable Google to do what Google does are employees of Google. Same with every other company. The odds of being the founder of a successful company are probably worse than being a professional sportsball player (if only because they turn over more frequently). Does anything good come from encouraging kids to think that they will manage to sail through life as a successful…

> Does anything good come from encouraging kids to think that they will manage to sail through life as a successful business founder rather than an employee? I would imagine dreaming big is pretty good for children. A big reason for why I'm optimistic in life is because I have hope for achieving something. I truly can't imagine a life where my father/mother would only hammer in the fact that I am just an average joe…

If everybody became an entrepreneur then we wouldn't have scientists working on our biggest technological problems.

Re: How to Start Google

#320

Post by hobobaggins »

bootsmann wrote: post #223
quatrefoil wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and from all my friends who did take VC money: it's an incredibly demanding period of your life, a large proportion of which isn't about delivering on your vision. You're gonna learn a lot about office space leases, accounting, fundraising, customer pitches, etc. You're gonna have impatient VCs on your board, with the power to fire you, breathing down your neck. You won't be relaxing much and won't be spending…

Usually by the time VCs have the power to fire you, you have so many different investors that they cannot really do it without some massively difficult political manouvering, at least in software.

Someone better tell that to Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Sean Parker, and Jack Dorsey.
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