61–70 of 384 posts
I think the article misses the point, though. Look at Bill Gates-- he had rich parents, and so he started Microsoft. Which has gone on to make millionaires of lots of ordinary folks and continues to provide good jobs to many, many people today. It's a good system, it benefits a lot of people.
A poor person betting everything on their startup is definitely good for pg - it increases the pool of people whose work he can profit from. It's not that obvious if it's good for the poor person. I guess that everybody has their own risk aversion threshold.
I'm shaking my head right now because I can't believe people at the top is still susceptible to sampling/survivorship bias. I've tried searching but cannot find a good empirical study of privilege and entrepreneurship correlation. However, I've found an essay paper [0] that exactly predicted this twitter drama; that entrepreneurs simultaneously present and erase this conversation about class and entrepreneurship. The…
Why is it surprising? There’s a combination of blindness, and inflated sense of self worth. America romanticizes the “self-made man”, and so any help is discounted. (Famously, a $1M family loan in 1975 (4.8M in 2019 dollars) was described as “small”.) Not coincidentally, these is a strong correlation with ascribing their success to a meritocracy, even though luck has been repeatedly shown more influential factor in s…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only data I can get is this: https://www.kauffman.org/what-we-do/research/2009/04/educati... 93% had a degree, with 30% having a masters, That would suggest to me that you'd need a decent wedge of cash. Now, what is interesting, is that in 2016 at least, the US created gross 960k new companies (there is some smoothing here, so +- 100k) The UK created 460k. Seeing as how the UK is 60 million, versus 300 million pe…
The UK also makes company formation very easy and still slightly advantageous for sole traders, which may be a factor. I did check the criteria and they do include "must be listed for VAT or PAYE", so they're all real businesses to some extent and not just shells. The US would do well to look at its business licensing requirements to see if they could be simplified in terms of paperwork.
The UK also has universal free healthcare for residents, so no need for private insurance when you leave an employer and set-up on your own.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The only data I can get is this: https://www.kauffman.org/what-we-do/research/2009/04/educati... 93% had a degree, with 30% having a masters, That would suggest to me that you'd need a decent wedge of cash. Now, what is interesting, is that in 2016 at least, the US created gross 960k new companies (there is some smoothing here, so +- 100k) The UK created 460k. Seeing as how the UK is 60 million, versus 300 million pe…
Why do you need "a decent wedge of cash" to have a degree? There are plenty of universities that are affordable. For instance, City University of New York (CUNY) offers four year undergrad degrees for $6,730 a year [0]. You can get a room share in an outer borough for maybe 500 - 1.5k a month or Jersey for even less [1]. And this is one of the most expensive cities in the world. If you're smart, avoid unnecessary exp…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A poor person betting everything... a poor person usually doesn't have much, besides the time and dedication.
There’s a big difference between poor and zero, and a poor person betting on a startup can hit zero really quick. At zero, you cannot pay rent and are likely to get evicted. Once evicted you are potentially NFA, which means you can’t get a bank card posted to you if you have problems with your card. How can you pay for food? Where can you use the bathroom? What about the electricity bill before you got evicted? The e…
A poor person betting everything on their startup is definitely good for pg - it increases the pool of people whose work he can profit from. It's not that obvious if it's good for the poor person. I guess that everybody has their own risk aversion threshold.
A poor person betting everything... a poor person usually doesn't have much, besides the time and dedication.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, working a four day week, and studying full time to do a degree. Yes, I can see that allowing lots of time to form a network and come up with business ideas.
I was replying to the specific claim that getting a degree requires a lot of money.