6 ms·

Most of the reports I've seen have stated that actually, it works the other way around. That the vast majority of people who go into entrepreneurship only do s

by ep103 10y ago

Most of the reports I've seen have stated that actually, it works the other way around. That the vast majority of people who go into entrepreneurship only do so if they have money to fall back on, one way or another, should their business fail. So by that logic, basic income should actually significantly increase the likelihood of entrepreneurship, because while mincome will still be low enough that people will want to work, it will be high enough to remove the barrier to entrepreneurship of: "but if this idea doesn't work out, I won't be able to eat"

pmalynin 10y ago
I think there was a bit on NPR a few months ago that discussed the idea that having a fallback will make you work and try less exactly for the same reason. I think having the "cornered animal" type of drive goes a long way.
- erpellan 10y ago
  By that logic productivity in all industries could be improved by introducing flogging / periodic executions of lowest performing staff. What's more likely: someone takes a risk knowing that if they fail their kids won't be homeless, or knowing that if they fail, they will be?
  - pmalynin 10y ago
    You are right -- that's how we built the Pyramids and America pre civil war, and look how far that got us. If you want interpret my response at the extremes I'm more that glad to dance.
    - ch4s3 10y ago
      The pyramids were built with corvee labor as a tax scheme and antebellum America relied on slavery, even the industrial free states utilized cheap raw materials like cotton produced in slave states. Are you suggesting that compelling people to work by force is an appropriate modern economic system?
      - pmalynin 10y ago
        It's just as appropriate as 'flogging / periodic executions of lowest performing staff' Hence my point.
  - derekp7 10y ago
    Some companies do this to a lesser degree -- every year they fire the bottom 10% of performers -- also known as stacked ranking.
    - Applejinx 10y ago
      Good for making people re-read their Rand, but pretty terrible for maintaining stable systems. What if you fired the bottom 10% of law-abiding citizens, as in 'if you speed and get parking tickets and DUIs and beat your husband or wife, you get fired'? To what extent is 'made more money immediately for the company' a useful societal metric? Why do we benefit just because THAT company happened to make money? And yet that's the metric… better we should ask 'what did they do'. Money is essentially a meaningless metric. If enough people decided 'the best people are those who bite other peoples' fingers off and keep them in a jar', that would be where the money was, and you'd be firing people who don't have human blood on their lips. There's no correlation between 'earning more money' and anything useful, societally or personally.
    - erpellan 10y ago
      I think most firms that tried it have since scrapped it. It turns out to be about as effective as firing a random 10% and promoting another random 10% of staff. Consider: a project is floundering. You put your best engineers on it to try and save it. It fails anyway. They get fired! Yay stack ranking.
- ep103 10y ago
  I don't know what the NPR piece was about, but you're right... when I _don't_ have a fallback is absolutely when I work the absolute hardest.... but not at my job. When I don't have a fallback, I'm doing the absolute minimum at my job, and working extra hours around the clock studying to line up a fallback. When I think I have a fallback, or things are going really well at my job is the only time where I'm fully dedicated to my employer
randall 10y ago
Another data point: I became an entrepreneur while my wife worked fulltime. Many don't have this option.
- err4nt 10y ago
  Another data point: I was forced into it by economic circumstances (bills and no job). Literally EVERYBODY has this option.
- clarry 10y ago
  I want to become an enterpreneur, but can't afford it. I'm not interested in "make money fast" schemes just for the sake of making money. I have ideas, things I want to try to build, but building my product would not happen overnight no matter how f*ing hard I work. More likely a minimum of anywhere between 6 and 12 months is required before it's feasible to start selling the product, and from there on it could take long before the income becomes a steady livelihood. I don't have the money to pay the bills for that long, I can't afford to become an enterpreneur. BI could change my life overnight.
  - randall 10y ago
    I disagree that you can't afford it. I've learned how that if you can't make a business that's generating 10k / month in 3 months it's probably the wrong market. You could keep iterating through markets until one of them sticks. That's what I'd recommend, anyway.
    - clarry 10y ago
      I'm not saying it's impossible for me to start generating money in 3 months. But merely generating money is not of interest to me. There are certain things I want to build, things I'm interested in, and these aren't things anyone's going to ship in three months starting from scratch.
  - err4nt 10y ago
    Try freelance, or contract work. You can be employed for yourself and making money right away without having to build a product or a business first. That's still running your own business and being an entrepreneur! Switching from salary to contract can be a big stepping stone for creating the career and life you want :D
err4nt 10y ago
Maybe on paper, or in theory. In my life I'm not ashamed to say it was the hunger of having nothing, no safety net, and having no job that STILL drives me today. That fire that got started when I had bills and no money is still burning strong today. But I worry if theres too mucb cushion perhaps I would have not hurt as bad, and ever achieved what Ive accomplished since then.
- Applejinx 10y ago
  Then make way for someone who is otherwise motivated, by something other than fire. Your personal drive to get money and succeed has nothing to do with your capacity to provide goods and services: heck, it might be causing you to cut corners, cheat people, and otherwise push so hard that you're harming your longterm prospects. If you're some sort of titanic corporate entity, you're almost compelled to deliver constantly growing earnings for the next quarter. If you're a sole proprietorship but driven by these deeply personal motivations, you might be stuck in similarly self-defeating attitudes. Compare to Elon Musk, who barely seems to register the concept of money and is only interested in the specific things he's doing. Without the money, he'd be much the same person, I think.
- sigmar 10y ago
  >it was the hunger of having nothing, no safety net, and having no job that STILL drives me today Canada has had health care provided to you since 1984. So to say you have "no safety net" is factually wrong. Did the existence of public health care make you decide to leave and build your business somewhere else? It seems it did not.
  - err4nt 10y ago
    Health care doesn't pay the electric bills. Health care doesn't buy groceries. I am glad if I went to the doctor I could have been seen without a cost to me. I didn't NEED a doctor, I needed food to eat, and money to pay bills to keep collections off my back.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > In my life I'm not ashamed to say it was the hunger of having nothing, no safety net, and having no job that STILL drives me today. Canada is a first-world country, and like all first-world safety nets, hasn't had "no safety net" for quite a long time (even the US, which has a fairly weak safety net for a first world country, especially given its relative per capita wealth and income, has had significant social safety nets for a long time.)

by ep103 10y ago

pmalynin 10y ago

I think there was a bit on NPR a few months ago that discussed the idea that having a fallback will make you work and try less exactly for the same reason. I think having the "cornered animal" type of drive goes a long way.

erpellan 10y ago
By that logic productivity in all industries could be improved by introducing flogging / periodic executions of lowest performing staff. What's more likely: someone takes a risk knowing that if they fail their kids won't be homeless, or knowing that if they fail, they will be?
- pmalynin 10y ago
  You are right -- that's how we built the Pyramids and America pre civil war, and look how far that got us. If you want interpret my response at the extremes I'm more that glad to dance.
  - ch4s3 10y ago
    The pyramids were built with corvee labor as a tax scheme and antebellum America relied on slavery, even the industrial free states utilized cheap raw materials like cotton produced in slave states. Are you suggesting that compelling people to work by force is an appropriate modern economic system?
    - pmalynin 10y ago
      It's just as appropriate as 'flogging / periodic executions of lowest performing staff' Hence my point.
- derekp7 10y ago
  Some companies do this to a lesser degree -- every year they fire the bottom 10% of performers -- also known as stacked ranking.
  - Applejinx 10y ago
    Good for making people re-read their Rand, but pretty terrible for maintaining stable systems. What if you fired the bottom 10% of law-abiding citizens, as in 'if you speed and get parking tickets and DUIs and beat your husband or wife, you get fired'? To what extent is 'made more money immediately for the company' a useful societal metric? Why do we benefit just because THAT company happened to make money? And yet that's the metric… better we should ask 'what did they do'. Money is essentially a meaningless metric. If enough people decided 'the best people are those who bite other peoples' fingers off and keep them in a jar', that would be where the money was, and you'd be firing people who don't have human blood on their lips. There's no correlation between 'earning more money' and anything useful, societally or personally.
  - erpellan 10y ago
    I think most firms that tried it have since scrapped it. It turns out to be about as effective as firing a random 10% and promoting another random 10% of staff. Consider: a project is floundering. You put your best engineers on it to try and save it. It fails anyway. They get fired! Yay stack ranking.
ep103 10y ago
I don't know what the NPR piece was about, but you're right... when I _don't_ have a fallback is absolutely when I work the absolute hardest.... but not at my job. When I don't have a fallback, I'm doing the absolute minimum at my job, and working extra hours around the clock studying to line up a fallback. When I think I have a fallback, or things are going really well at my job is the only time where I'm fully dedicated to my employer

randall 10y ago

Another data point: I became an entrepreneur while my wife worked fulltime. Many don't have this option.

err4nt 10y ago
Another data point: I was forced into it by economic circumstances (bills and no job). Literally EVERYBODY has this option.
clarry 10y ago
I want to become an enterpreneur, but can't afford it. I'm not interested in "make money fast" schemes just for the sake of making money. I have ideas, things I want to try to build, but building my product would not happen overnight no matter how f*ing hard I work. More likely a minimum of anywhere between 6 and 12 months is required before it's feasible to start selling the product, and from there on it could take long before the income becomes a steady livelihood. I don't have the money to pay the bills for that long, I can't afford to become an enterpreneur. BI could change my life overnight.
- randall 10y ago
  I disagree that you can't afford it. I've learned how that if you can't make a business that's generating 10k / month in 3 months it's probably the wrong market. You could keep iterating through markets until one of them sticks. That's what I'd recommend, anyway.
  - clarry 10y ago
    I'm not saying it's impossible for me to start generating money in 3 months. But merely generating money is not of interest to me. There are certain things I want to build, things I'm interested in, and these aren't things anyone's going to ship in three months starting from scratch.
- err4nt 10y ago
  Try freelance, or contract work. You can be employed for yourself and making money right away without having to build a product or a business first. That's still running your own business and being an entrepreneur! Switching from salary to contract can be a big stepping stone for creating the career and life you want :D

err4nt 10y ago

Maybe on paper, or in theory. In my life I'm not ashamed to say it was the hunger of having nothing, no safety net, and having no job that STILL drives me today. That fire that got started when I had bills and no money is still burning strong today. But I worry if theres too mucb cushion perhaps I would have not hurt as bad, and ever achieved what Ive accomplished since then.

Applejinx 10y ago
Then make way for someone who is otherwise motivated, by something other than fire. Your personal drive to get money and succeed has nothing to do with your capacity to provide goods and services: heck, it might be causing you to cut corners, cheat people, and otherwise push so hard that you're harming your longterm prospects. If you're some sort of titanic corporate entity, you're almost compelled to deliver constantly growing earnings for the next quarter. If you're a sole proprietorship but driven by these deeply personal motivations, you might be stuck in similarly self-defeating attitudes. Compare to Elon Musk, who barely seems to register the concept of money and is only interested in the specific things he's doing. Without the money, he'd be much the same person, I think.
sigmar 10y ago
>it was the hunger of having nothing, no safety net, and having no job that STILL drives me today Canada has had health care provided to you since 1984. So to say you have "no safety net" is factually wrong. Did the existence of public health care make you decide to leave and build your business somewhere else? It seems it did not.
- err4nt 10y ago
  Health care doesn't pay the electric bills. Health care doesn't buy groceries. I am glad if I went to the doctor I could have been seen without a cost to me. I didn't NEED a doctor, I needed food to eat, and money to pay bills to keep collections off my back.
dragonwriter 10y ago
> In my life I'm not ashamed to say it was the hunger of having nothing, no safety net, and having no job that STILL drives me today. Canada is a first-world country, and like all first-world safety nets, hasn't had "no safety net" for quite a long time (even the US, which has a fairly weak safety net for a first world country, especially given its relative per capita wealth and income, has had significant social safety nets for a long time.)