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When I was in college, I went to the career center looking for a job. I had my resume all spiffy and on it was a startup I had been working on in college. The
by fnid2 17y ago
When I was in college, I went to the career center looking for a job. I had my resume all spiffy and on it was a startup I had been working on in college.
The recruiter asked why I didn't pursue the startup idea and I said, "I need to pay the rent."
I think that sums it up right there for most. We enter college with nothing, and we leave college with less than nothing (i.e. $100,000 in debt). So we go get a job so we can pay the bills meaning we get $5k a month coming in pretty easily and that's a lot of money. It's definitely enough money for a college kid to pay for rent and be happy for a while and they probably end up being so happy that nothing else is worth the risk.
Why risk $60k a year on a startup that will buy you (if you are lucky) some ramen to eat and some space in your parents' basement? A BMW plus a phat apartment in a high rise is difficult to turn down for something that appears, for all intents and purposes, to have about a 1 in 1000 (at best) shot of success.
That's why we have no entrepreneurs anymore. Life is too easy without them.
- Psyonic 17y ago"That's why we have no entrepreneurs anymore. Life is too easy without them." Any evidence to support a decline in entrepreneurs? The internet seems to be overflowing with them.
- fnid2 17y agoIt's probably selection bias. It's easy to find people you want to find on the internet, but look around you in the real world. If you aren't in silicon valley, it's very difficult to find entrepreneurs and it's even harder to find them outside the internet.
- garply 17y agoI'm in Beijing, I'm in the food industry, and I'm surrounded by entrepreneurs who almost never go online. I turned down the posh jobs out of college and my partner quit McKinsey to found our company. A friend just bought a million dollar factory for his t-shirt and pants company. Entrepreneurship is not just online and the notion that entrepreneurship is in decline feels very wrong to me. I'd like to see data.
- sriram_sun 17y agoYou are biased towards software startups. I live in the US and I've lived in India. Look around you as you drive home. There are entrepreneurs everywhere. Small businesses drive around 70% of the economy.
- obfuscate 17y ago"A BMW plus a phat apartment in a high rise is difficult to turn down for something that appears, for all intents and purposes, to have about a 1 in 1000 (at best) shot of success." What's a good place to find actual statistics on success rate and financial return for startups?