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I like the comparison to Puritanism and delayed gratification. There is something there. Even long after active religious beliefs are gone, there is a long tra
by rdtsc 10y ago
I like the comparison to Puritanism and delayed gratification. There is something there.
Even long after active religious beliefs are gone, there is a long trail of attitudes and habits which linger on. They just become part of culture.
Also those institutions or individuals (owners) who can tap into those attitude and play them against others can reap great benefits. There are a bit like settings and switches already there, just have to turn them on.
"Work hard and you'll be rewarded in the afterlife". In this case the "afterlife" like the article mentions is the exit event, or what used to be the IPO.
This belief is useful both to the owners (the ones who control the believers), but it is also useful to the believers as well. It provides comfort and a sense of mission. That last bit is readily discarded, but I think it is a very important part in the equation.
People will work 80 hour weeks at below market salary if they get to fantasize of being a multi-millionaires. Even people who think themselves beyond irrationality and silly biases (programmers in our case) will go for it.
Maybe the ability to fantasize, is actually worth something. Perhaps imagining oneself a little Zuckerberg or Mark Cuban, should be worth something. You are closer to that dream by working in a startup than say working for a big corp or sandwich shop. Is that dream worth the salary cut and uncertainty? That's the question.
Comparing with other countries, I wonder if there are cultures where this wouldn't work as well. And it might explain why startups just can't take off there. Let's suppose there is capital and talent but people there might ask "Yeah what's in it for me today?" and if the answer is "You can dream about being wealthy in the future". They'll say "No, thank you" more readily. It could be because of a religious background or they simply have less faith in official institutions.
- jolux 10y agosee also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_S...
- romanhn 10y agoOn the other hand, look at the many immigrant entrepreneurs, most of whom have far from Puritanical backgrounds. I hail from ex-Soviet Union (and I think you might as well?), which had none of the "work hard and you'll be rewarded" attitude and more of "to each according to their needs". Yet I'm quite happy to dream on occasion.
- gaius 10y agoWell yes and no. A part of the Marxist ideology was that the Workers Paradise lay just around the corner if only everyone worked hand and sacrificed for it now, and if you died before it happened, you knew that your grandkids would see it. It was exactly the same delayed-gratification mechanism - and also why Marx was adamant that all other (competing) religions needed to be killed off.
- andrei_says_ 10y agoAn attitude which turned to be unrealistic and unachievable and was quickly recognized as propaganda bs. People from the "socialist" countries saw through the bs relatively quickly and adopted the attitude "you pretend to pay me and I pretend to work" When such a person moves to an environment where a real chance exists to reap the rewards of their labor, they get the proverbial wings. The puritan/religious seem to be unconscious of the oppressive programming and see it as their own "values" I wish there were easily accessible statistics for startups "making it" vs failures. People should be able to know what the odds are for the lottery ticket they buy with ~5 years of their lives. Maybe someone can create an app for calculating your startup's chances.
- cookiecaper 10y agoI think the startup scene is mostly populated by naive young coders more than people who've rationally chosen to discard tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of fantasy. When people grow up, they are more than willing to accept a job at a mature company with slightly less exciting prospects for much more overall compensation, respect and accommodation. Investors are so keen to pump a flattering narrative about youth being critical to new ideas to try to keep the flow of naive underpaid labor coming in, but none of that stuff is really true. Experienced people are more valuable in everything, including software and entrepreneurship. There's nothing wrong with that and it only makes sense. The solution is to become experienced.