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Billionaires Build

paulgraham.com

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Re: Billionaires Build

#821

Post by istjohn »

kevas wrote: post #642
istjohn wrote: post #531

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a study that found that blue collar and white collar parents have distinct parenting styles. Blue collar parents are more authoritarian. They teach their children to obey authority, which as it happens is what is generally required to succeed in a blue collar job. White collar parents teach their children to think for themselves and be assertive, behaviors that are--perhaps not coincidentally--rewarded in w…

Do you have a link to that study as I’d love to read it.

I don't remember where I read that, exactly. But here's an example that discusses some of these ideas: https://www.jstor.org/stable/350357

Re: Billionaires Build

#822

Post by BurningFrog »

pm90 wrote: post #766
BurningFrog wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK. By that definition leverage is a wonderful thing everyone should use!

Slavery was leveraging the forced labor of other humans. Leverage is not always "wonderful".

Fitting slavery into "A mechanism by which a small input can result in a larger output" feels like a stretch.

But I agree that there is moral and amoral leverage. I of course only love the moral kind.

Re: Billionaires Build

#823

Post by ericd »

CraigJPerry wrote: post #816
ericd wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does? A $5/mo droplet can serve a good amount of traffic. And there are lots of free ways to get some initial users, they just take time. I know because I’ve done exactly that. This kind of can’t-do attitude really saddens me. I see it all the time in these discussions about wealth inequality.

I think you may have a few competitive advantages that a 16 year old may lack, like a quiet place to work, an internet connection, a network of people, etc. etc. You’ve got such an advantage that it’s utterly pointless to draw comparisons. The idea that someone somewhere can probably maybe might be able to make this work does not make the case that people have opportunity.

We were talking about needing startup capital to get the business off the ground, so this is kind of moving the goalposts.

But if you have a library nearby, that can take care of a lot of the concerns you’re talking about. Before the pandemic, I frequently worked out of one. Your hypothetical 16 year old likely has a suitable spot at their school.

You really don’t need an existing network to get a business started. You can find initial users on Internet forums, or reach out to people on LinkedIn.

Re: Billionaires Build

#824

Post by webmaven »

Olreich wrote: post #799
xyzzyz wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you were familiar with the data, you wouldn't make statements like that, because heritability of intelligence is largely the same across all population studied so far, and universally high. There are exceptions, e.g. Scarr-Rowe effect is most likely real, but it only seems to work on very low end of SES range, which is virtually unseen in today's America, even at the lowest end of what counts as poverty.

Via what mechanism are we testing? Did we send some kids through a good upbringing and some to a bad one in a randomized controlled way, or did we just take a survey and assume intelligence was passed down through genealogy instead of upbringing?

> Via what mechanism are we testing? Did we send some kids through a good upbringing and some to a bad one in a randomized controlled way, or did we just take a survey and assume intelligence was passed down through genealogy instead of upbringing?

The most informative studies in this area are usually of twins-separated-at-birth, but the datasets aren't very large.

Re: Billionaires Build

#825

Post by bccdee »

chii wrote: post #741
bccdee wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That analysis is not inherently dependent on the labour theory of value. You can frame it that way, but value need not come into it at all. Business owners are capital owners; they have power which arises from the fact that they own a business. They can offer jobs, which everyone needs, but no individual employee is necessary to them. It's a buyer's market, and as a result, the business owner has a lot more power to…

Nothing is stopping anyone from starting a competing business, and offering a better deal to the workers. There's no objective way to say how much "work" is worth - only subjective. This subjective measure is given by the market rate. And in a functioning free market, this should give you consensus as to what some "work" is worth. > the one to found the country ... people are so unwilling to apply the same analysis t…

> Nothing is stopping anyone from starting a competing business, and offering a better deal to the workers.

Nothing except not having the capital to do it.

> There's no objective way to say how much "work" is worth

Fortunately I explicitly said at the beginning that my argument wasn't going to involve talking about the value of work at all.

> everyone would just reject his founding

Literally every country up until that point except perhaps Athens had been a dictatorship of some sort. Democracy doesn't just happen -- you have to make it happen. There was no presupposition that everyone should have equal rights before then; that was the innovation of it. There's no reason why that same innovation couldn't be extended into industry.

> Anyone can start a business on a different principle

And anyone can start a country on a different principle. But you have to have a lot of resources to do so, and unless you found it on equality, it'll be terrible for most of the inhabitants. So, given that we have a government to regulate society, I see no reason to let people found businesses based on principles which will lead to such gross wealth inequality.

Re: Billionaires Build

#826

Post by bccdee »

kortilla wrote: post #761
bccdee wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That analysis is not inherently dependent on the labour theory of value. You can frame it that way, but value need not come into it at all. Business owners are capital owners; they have power which arises from the fact that they own a business. They can offer jobs, which everyone needs, but no individual employee is necessary to them. It's a buyer's market, and as a result, the business owner has a lot more power to…

> If someone uses their power to divert money into their own pockets away from people who need it more than they do, they're exploiting others So when the dinner bill comes and you are given the power to choose how much to tip a waiter/waitress, do you exploit them by not giving them all of the money you can afford? When shopping for a car, do you look for the dealer with the highest markup knowing how tough care sal…

If I were especially wealthy, sure. Ultimately, the only way we can judge our actions is by their consequences. If I'm a middle-class person, giving another middle-class person extra cash won't benefit them much more than it hurts me. If I'm wealthy, the situation changes; I need each dollar substantially less than other people do.

But frankly, I'm not interested in moralizing individual's actions at all. I'm not interested in going "oh Jeff Bezos is a BAD PERSON for X Y and Z." I think that's silly. I want to use the legislative system to raise is taxes and put his money to better ends whether he likes it or not. Whether Jeff Bezos is "good" is entirely irrelevant.

Re: Billionaires Build

#828

Post by webmaven »

Olreich wrote: post #800
centimeter wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heritability studies suggest this is much more strongly mediated by genetic factors (such as IQ and time preference) than social factors.

People aren’t dumb because they got the stupid gene (barring deformity that does real brain damage). They’re dumb because they were taught to be. The are large social circles that being smart is a bad trait. There are social circles where there is little opportunity to learn as well. There’s little differentiation between baby brains and epigenetic traits aren’t set in stone by parentage, though upbringing will have…

> You don’t inherit intelligence, you get taught to throw it away or not based largely on environmental factors, including how your parents raise you.

You're glossing over the role of other personality traits in success. And yes, environmental factors are hugely important to those as well, but often in complex ways.

For example, food insecurity during childhood has an enormous impact on an individual's ability to delay gratification. While there is certainly quite a bit that parenting can do to make that even worse, there isn't a lot that can be done to make it better.

Re: Billionaires Build

#829

Post by bccdee »

CyberRabbi wrote: post #789
bccdee wrote: post #706

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also need to already have the capital to get a skilled education and to support yourself while you do. Or you could assume large amounts of student debt before having a job, gambling on being able to complete your education and get a job before the payments start coming in. There's a student debt crisis for a reason. And you better not get too ambitious and pursue a degree that's too difficult, or you won't be ab…

The student debt crisis is suffered mainly by people who majored in non-technical fields from liberal arts colleges. There is a lack of jobs for people who have training in the humanities. That is unfortunate but that is not what I am suggesting. If you take out a loan for professional training for a skill that is in high demand you will have little trouble paying it back. Software engineering is an example, but real…

Not everyone is well-suited to those fields. Starting a degree that you can't finish is the worst choice possible. But even if everyone retrained as software engineers, that would just result in a surplus & everyone would need to retrain again.

Re: Billionaires Build

#830

Post by bccdee »

ericd wrote: post #773
bccdee wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, starting a business takes capital. You can build a Django website from your basement for free, but to turn it into a profitable business takes cash.

It does? A $5/mo droplet can serve a good amount of traffic. And there are lots of free ways to get some initial users, they just take time. I know because I’ve done exactly that. This kind of can’t-do attitude really saddens me. I see it all the time in these discussions about wealth inequality.

I know. I've set up websites before; I am aware that it doesn't take that much money to get it running.

But what about advertising? Branding? Anything that a $5 droplet can do, someone else's product can probably do too -- you don't have the tech advantage. Do you stand out with UX? By doing the legwork yourself? All of these take manpower, and that means capital.

It's not the website that costs money to make; it's making that website profitable.

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