The myth of the serial entrepreneur • Hacker News Board

Re: The myth of the serial entrepreneur

#51

Post by bfe » Fri, Jun 29, 2012, 10:31 PM UTC

Great essay, though I don't think it's precise in how it characterizes pg's status as a serial entrepreneur.

There's no doubt YC is a second startup, but it's still sort of a unique case or meta-startup that serves pg's prior stated interest, as quoted in the essay, in not fully facing the risks and schleps of a normal startup. I believe I remember pg writing somewhere that he didn't want to repeat the giant risk of a normal startup, and he saw YC as a way of taking a diversified portfolio approach to startup involvement, of smoothing out the risk (and schleps) of a startup.

So, I don't think the essay is precise in simply characterizing pg as saying he shied away from doing another startup until he changed his mind and did one anyway. Instead, he came up with a kind of startup that he could get into that didn't require changing his mind about his approach. (At least, that's how I understood it.)

Re: The myth of the serial entrepreneur

#52

Post by saraid216 » Sat, Jun 30, 2012, 5:36 AM UTC

aortega wrote: post #50

saraid216 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the diss on Africa?

I wanted to make an example of a poor place. I know it was not potically correct, and a generalization.

It's not factually correct.

Re: The myth of the serial entrepreneur

#53

Post by swombat » Sat, Jun 30, 2012, 10:58 AM UTC

jaredsohn wrote: post #37

guth wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Skype?

that should be PayPal

Oops! Yes, it should!

Re: The myth of the serial entrepreneur

#54

Post by swombat » Sat, Jun 30, 2012, 11:04 AM UTC

aortega wrote: post #36

krschultz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Success or failure has a large component of luck that people don't like to acknowledge. Especially counter-factual luck. My parents are very lucky to never have had to deal with serious illness, injury, accident, etc. I'm sure if there was a terrible car accident that killed my family, I wouldn't exactly be as focused on my work and therefore less 'succesful' as an entrepreneur. But there is an element of uniqueness…

I agree with all you said, but consider that humans in general are terrible at estimating risk. I believe being an entrepeneur is not that risky, and being an employee is not that safe either. The main problem that I see about seeing entrepeneurship as unnaturally bold, risk-takers, creative intelligent people, is that you dehumanize the no-entrepeneur person, in such a way that's very easy to exploit them, because,…

Funnily enough, I covered exactly this point in an earlier article, though this one wasn't so popular with the hn crowd..

http://swombat.com/2012/6/18/entrepreneurship-safest-career

Re: The myth of the serial entrepreneur

#55

Post by lrobb » Sat, Jun 30, 2012, 11:34 AM UTC

KingMob wrote: post #39

swombat wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you name a handful? I don't argue that there are no such people, but I don't think there's a tonne of them.

The very fact that you don't know them could support the point. In science, this is known as survival bias. It's a mistake to argue that the entrepreneurs you read and hear about must be representative of all entrepreneurs. It's quite likely that the ones most likely to become serial entrepreneurs will remain visible, and the ones who stop after a successful exit are less likely to remain in the field.

Quite right. There's a lot of people that just start one business and then stay with it for the rest of their working life. Then there's a lot of people that start something, decide that it's not for them, then go back to join a company. If your news only comes from techcrunch and venturebeat, you're missing out on these stories.

Re: The myth of the serial entrepreneur

#56

Post by temp1337 » Sun, Jul 01, 2012, 12:44 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #28

mik4el wrote: post #24

Another perspective; can you call yourself a true entrepreneur if you haven't had more than one entrepreneurial endevaour (I'm not talking that you need to have IPOd a tech company before but rather had a lemonade stand as a kid and vice versa)?

When I read a question that gets into what or is not a "true entrepreneur" all I can think of is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman which suggests to me that debating over labels like "true entrepreneur" (or not) or "serial entrepreneur" (or not) is a waste of time. The same discussion also smacks of a sort of elitism that I associate with the idiots to run around talking about what metal bands are or are…

Wow--the truth hurts. I don't have any down-votes, but no comments or up-votes here. Well, it's not about me. It's about the lives that Peter Thiel can ruin by taking people out of school. Being a billionaire removes the kind of people who will warn you about this. Not a flame--just an observation. Meanwhile, I think I'll go hug my spouse and dog. If there's a lesson here--speak truth to money. Speak truth to power. I'm not going to fix our species--but I'm not going to whine to a bartender or worship a zombie either. Good luck--everyone.