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I am done. I give up

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: I am done. I give up

#511

Post by api »

hcks wrote: post #506
pavlov wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the underappreciated benefits of the Nordic-style welfare state: everybody can afford to fail. Unfortunately it's rarely discussed in society as such. The political parties that built these welfare states have traditionally been associated with worker unions, and entrepreneurship isn't high on their agenda. The Nordic right-wing parties got ideologically married to Thatcher-style neoliberalism and pref…

Absolutely, and this explains largely why most of the massively successful startups we all know comes from the Nordics and not from places with poor social security like the USA

I think it’s cultural. The US places a lot of value on striving out and doing new things. It’s a frontier culture. Older cultures tend to be more conservative.

You can see this effect inside the US. The most “business friendly” states often do not lead in entrepreneurship because they’re culturally more conservative.

Re: I am done. I give up

#512

Post by rightbyte »

MLH6ft1 wrote: post #291

Dude at least tell us what you were working on? I mean there is zero context to this post. How am I to process the fact your product got zero sign ups when you haven't even mentioned what it is. "Don't make the same mistakes I did", what mistakes have you even highlighted here (and I mean mistakes related to your product and not the fact that you fell for the honey trap posts' of social media influencers)???? 257 com…

Ye. This story would have been way more interesting with examples of the products. Otherwise there is not much to discuss of the posters specific situation or why he failed.

Re: I am done. I give up

#513

Post by kwhitefoot »

annyeonghada wrote: post #397
jll29 wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your point about Europe squandering engineering talent. Overall, it's a trade-off, though. You are right about the US opportunities, but there are downsides, too: - crime (you get crime everywhere, but the US has a particularly and unnecessarily high level of serious crime like gun crime - e.g. school shootings happen pretty regularly); - not everyone has good healthcare & social services (I am aware you…

All the problems you listed as US-specific problems exist in my corner of Europe too, except gun violence. And on top of that we have fewer jobs, lower salaries, higher taxes and high unemployment. I love Europe: its history, its music, its art, its architecture, its legacy - yes! the good and the bad -, its food, its cultures. But from my point of view we are killing ourselves, choked in an endless decay, metastasiz…

> American tend to compare the worst of their country with the best

Everyone does that. There seems to be a type of bragging that works by emphasizing how much more dangerous one's own country/state/town/village is than someone else's.

Re: I am done. I give up

#514

Post by doctorwho42 »

pc86 wrote: post #456
LastTrain wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Sometimes the rich kid was abused by his dad and it ate him up inside and he turned to drugs and died of an overdose at 25 years old. Sometimes the middle class kid came from a father that survived as a child in WW2 with undiagnosed metal scars to prove it. Sometimes the poor kid learns plumbing from his dad then starts and scales a business up to millions in sales.“ That is adorable, and plumbers aren’t poor.

Nobody said plumbers are poor.

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

Re: I am done. I give up

#516

Post by safety1st »

jnovek wrote: post #326
safety1st wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, the rich have more advantages than the poor. Always been that way and always will. In our culture there is an immense preoccupation with the unfairness of this but the reality is that if you don't come from wealth and privilege, you need a different playbook. Dwelling on the inequity neuters you. If you want to win you need to figure out what the playbook is and then do the right things. I found a playbook that…

Class mobility is generally regarded as a good thing for economies. It increases competition. What you’re saying is that the only way for you to get ahead is by exporting your own lack of class mobility to another nation. This is akin to shipping trash to other shores so we don’t have to deal with the repercussions of landfills in wealthier nations. If that’s considered a sane way to get ahead, home is not economical…

You missed the point entirely.

Re: I am done. I give up

#517

Post by brightball »

Vespasian wrote: post #490
brightball wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When my wife started her business, we lived on my income for 5 years while she continually reinvested in growing it. It was hard but worth it.

Congratulations (I mean it. No /s). I understand that to mean that your income was enough to keep (at least) both of you fed, housed and clothed. Maybe you also had some savings/family support to use as a Kickstarter for her business and possibly to help pay the bills but maybe you didn't. If both of you had to work 40+ hours a week and there is still too much month left at the end of the money, it's really hard to a…

Yea. I was a programmer working for a stable telecom company at the time. We didn't have kids yet and lived in a low cost of living area where it was possible to live off of my income. It wasn't a huge sum of money by any stretch, but it was enough while we limited expenses.

There were a lot of trials. We were close to having to file for bankruptcy 6 different times during a particularly difficult 2 year stretch. Our exit plan was always that she just go back to work with the potential to have to sell our house to pay of debts or lease agreements.

Starting a business is hard with a lot of risks and that's before you actually hire staff. The moment that you have to consistently make payroll on time, your stress level goes through the roof with the combination of obligation to financial consistency and the knowledge that you are responsible for other people (and their families in many cases).

Re: I am done. I give up

#518

Post by miraculixx »

blagie wrote: post #40

Having done several options -- entrepreneurship, job, internal entrepreneurship, and consulting, my advice: - Entrepreneurship isn't a lifestyle. Stay in a job unless you have a good idea and are ready to execute. - Try your idea internally. Starting a new product in a company is easier than outside. It doesn't have a $1B upside, but it has enough upside, in all respects (not just financial -- learning, credibility,…

Well yes and no. Innovating as an employee sucks because somebody else gets all the benefits.

Re: I am done. I give up

#519

Post by FpUser »

Tycho wrote: post #332
Sammi wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You really don't think there is already more than enough inequality? I get the case for some capital accumulation. Capital does make for an amazing economic engine that we all benefit from. Capitalist countries are richer than non capitalist countries. Easy to understand. But there is a point where more capital accumulation and inequality just makes the rest of us become serfs to oligarchs.

I think we need more Elon Musks, yes. Although, obviously, we don’t want more people who got rich by being politicians.

I have a suspicion that if Elon Musk types were given free reign we would end up with people working overtime for pennies.

Re: I am done. I give up

#520

Post by meristohm »

koobe wrote: post #230
pavlov wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the underappreciated benefits of the Nordic-style welfare state: everybody can afford to fail. Unfortunately it's rarely discussed in society as such. The political parties that built these welfare states have traditionally been associated with worker unions, and entrepreneurship isn't high on their agenda. The Nordic right-wing parties got ideologically married to Thatcher-style neoliberalism and pref…

Flip side of the welfare state is the heavy tax burden. Heavily progressive income tax makes it harder for individuals to accumulate capital for enterprenial endeavours, be it their own or investing in others'. This limits early stage investments and growth. Also, there are limited incentives in investing in careers and productivity as net income is surprisingly similar in lowest 10% and highest 10% income earners.

Burden? If the substrate/infrastructure you're playing in is maintained by our tax money, count your blessings and work to build trust in a system that, as others in this thread have already said, helps set everyone up to more-safely fail and grow. No one person is so important that we need to cultivate philanthropists. I'd far rather we collectively decide what to do with wealth generated from natural resources (all the way up to human resources). We can do better than the relatively few wealthy people with the means and inclination to give back.

The question is, how do we build a stronger representative government in the United States (where I live) when we're so divided and distrusting? Having a common enemy might work, but it can't be another group of people to go to war with. Might need to be the metaphorical devil(s) on our shoulders, and for that we need good mental health training from a young age, which now, given how broken and dispersed so many family groups are, requires tax money guided by science and wisdom.

You and I are here but a moment. The bleeding edge of life will quickly pass us by, and the positive impact I am most proud of is the love and care I give to future generations, human and otherwise.

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