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I am done. I give up

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Re: I am done. I give up

#631

Post by pclmulqdq »

Retric wrote: post #473
pclmulqdq wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their total tax burdens are much higher than US citizens' tax burdens unless you're making 7 figures of W-2 income. The top marginal tax rate kicks in an order of magnitude lower in those countries, and hits most of the middle class. In the US, it hits very few people. Also, the military is 20% of the discretionary budget, but 10% or less of the total budget.

US total government spending is officially 34% of total GDP, Germany is 43.7%. With much of that covering healthcare and collage education which more than makes up the difference for the median family. In the end, the US’s extreme defense spending and horrifically inefficient healthcare system is a massive drag on the economy. What the US does differently from most of the EU is to hide as much spending as possible in…

US military spending is 4% of GDP. When a warmonger is president, that goes up to about 6% of GDP. The NATO commitment is 2% of GDP. It is not particularly extreme.

The real drag is the US healthcare system, which effectively finances most of the medical R&D for the US, India, South America, and Europe, and also provides ridiculous levels of treatment for people who are about to die (in comparison to other health systems). There is also the US social security system, which seems to be very inefficient at best...

Re: I am done. I give up

#632

Post by bumby »

safety1st wrote: post #606
bumby wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please review the HN Guidelines before commenting. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

I mean you're not wrong but you missed my point. There's always an angle. That's how everyone succeeds. You find your angle and you exploit it. Everybody has at least one. You choose here to focus on the fact that some people have more angles available to them than others. You call them privilege and believe them to be unjust. If you do that too much, you'll defeat yourself and destroy your own agency. Maybe you're r…

I acknowledged your point. I also agree that the individual should focus on what is in their power to exploit. But I think it's also important to recognize and work to fix systemic issues if we value a just system. Both can be true at the same time and I think it's sometimes a mistake of the hustle-porn mentality to focus exclusively on one while ignoring the other.

Re: I am done. I give up

#633

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

vidarh wrote: post #413
pclmulqdq wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their total tax burdens are much higher than US citizens' tax burdens unless you're making 7 figures of W-2 income. The top marginal tax rate kicks in an order of magnitude lower in those countries, and hits most of the middle class. In the US, it hits very few people. Also, the military is 20% of the discretionary budget, but 10% or less of the total budget.

When I at one point considered moving to the US, I did the numbers for UK and Norway, because I'm from Norway and live in the UK, and while Norway certainly came out higher in terms of tax than some US states, comparing with places I might be prepared to consider, like California, the difference was small enough it'd be more than eaten up by health insurance before considering the other costs of a reduced welfare sys…

Health care in the US is effectively a corporate tax and should be labelled as such.

If you want to compare the real costs and benefits of starting a business you need to compare like for like, which includes all national, state, and privatised taxes and other indirect costs.

When you include those the reality-based answer is that the US fares relatively poorly.

Which is why the US has a more aggressive VC sector. Whether by accident or design start-ups are forced to look for outside funding far earlier, and bootstrapping is far harder.

The result is more of a monoculture that chases unicorns and less of a vibrant sector of independent small and medium businesses, some of which will grow into unicorns naturally.

Re: I am done. I give up

#634

Post by sudo_navendu »

Looking back at my career, there have always been points where I felt I hit rock bottom and anything I did wasn't helping.

When I quit my job to start a new career in software engineering, I hoped to find a job after a couple of months of preparation. Even after 8 months and close to 200 applications, I still couldn't find a job.

I felt like I made the wrong decision by quitting my previous job and whether I actually had any skills to work in tech. I almost decided to stop and take a different job when I received a life-changing opportunity as a software engineer.

The good thing about hitting rock bottom is that the only place you have left to go is high. It will be hard, but slow progress will surely help you reach your goal. If things aren't working out as you expected, it might be time to switch your goals and try something different.

Anyway, this is undoubtedly not the end. You were clearly determined to pursue what you wanted, but maybe it wasn't aligned. I genuinely wish you all the best for your future, and I hope to see you reach your goals.

Re: I am done. I give up

#635

Post by czbond »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #408
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…

And that is why, in the USA, health care is not a given (or at least extremely affordable). As long as that is then - especially if you have a family - taking risk that might lead to failure is a no go. Instead, the no risk route is to assimilate into the status quo, become a cog in The System's wheel. Providing foundational First World "human rights" would allow more professional / career freedom.

> taking risk that might lead to failure is a no go.

For certain personality types. Let's say with some high conviction, the typical technology / engineering personality is already highly risk adverse.

Thus - they need all the risk avoidance as possible. Entrepreneurship is a risk game. It is defined by risk; those that won't start without safety nets will probably never start at all.

I know enough family men who built startups for years with young kids - earning nothing. It's not the situation, it's the person.

Re: I am done. I give up

#636

Post by majani »

WJW wrote: post #608
hef19898 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I have a problem with the term lifestyle business. Without plenty of VC money, building and running a business is hard . VC backed up start-ups fit the "lifestyle" business definition a lot better, IMHO. One can play CxO, or chief engineer or whatever fancy title one wants to hold without putting the effort and years in, without actually worrying about those nasty things like profitability, cash flow or a…

Even with VC money, running a business is very hard. Accepting VC money means you just sold a big chunk of your business to people who want to see it grow at maximum rate at any cost. Most won't blink an eye at burning out every single employee including the founders, for example. Running a business is always hard and will always be hard, since it's a competitive activity against other humans who are also clever, har…

You say this but but VCs are still quite limited in their control until about series C. Literally all the founders I know who have raised over $1m have pretty good lifestyles (house, car, frequent travel). It's worlds apart from the bootstrappers I know who remain frugal despite being profitable

Re: I am done. I give up

#637

Post by moneywoes »

ArtemH wrote: post #316

I cannot say that I'm a clear Indie Startup entrepreneur. Because I'm not. But I work in the area of engagement and finding new customers for the product that don't really exist yet. I've started to raise my language skill, so I even didn't know English well, and it seemed impossible to me like learn foreign language for 3 months. But I'm still here. I have already spent 7 months trying to find first customers (our e…

May I ask what your strategies are? What do you find works best?

Re: I am done. I give up

#638

Post by emadabdulrahim »

andrew_ wrote: post #598
kybernetyk wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. It's the "developers trying to sell products to other developers" conundrum. You know the development workflow. You came up with a great tool to increase productivity for developers. You set a low price of $50. And yet no one is going to buy it because "lol I could do this in a weekend". Developers are cheap bastards (I'm still fighting over whether I should shell our $99 for Panic's Nova editor or not - even t…

> Developers are cheap bastards Am a developer and can confirm. I am a cheap bastard.

This made me chuckle.

Re: I am done. I give up

#639

Post by jamiequint »

opyate wrote: post #320

Succeeding in the startup world reminds me of the funfair analogy: The rich kid will have a go at throwing the dart at the balloon, and miss. But, because they're a rich kid, they just take out their wallet (or parents' wallet), get more stubs, and try again (and again) until they hit the balloon. The middle class kid will have a go at throwing the dart at the balloon, and also miss. Then they will walk away, saying…

This seems objectively false given that the majority of extremely successful startups are founded by first or second generation immigrants, who are often not well off.

https://nfap.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-BILLION-DOL...

Re: I am done. I give up

#640

Post by ip26 »

bumby wrote: post #555
ip26 wrote: post #485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much privilege does it take to move to Guatemala or Pakistan?

I dunno. What if they’re currently living in Bangladesh?

In this model, people living in Bangladesh skip the “moving” part. They already live in a low cost locale.
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