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> In 2011, I applied to operate a booth at the Toronto Underground Food Market [...] my fingers cramping so severely from peeling 100 pounds of potatoes that I

by Lazare 9y ago

> In 2011, I applied to operate a booth at the Toronto Underground Food Market [...] my fingers cramping so severely from peeling 100 pounds of potatoes that I almost called 911. [...] I lost money So his first experience was extremely painful, almost landed you in the emergency room, and you lost money on it. What valuable lessons he learned going forward? > I didn’t care. None. > Eighty per cent of first-time restaurateurs fail. I knew this. Opening a restaurant was the least sensible, dumbest thing I could do. My wife, Dorothy, a daycare worker, was coasting toward the end of a maternity leave, and we had two kids to feed. It's so rare to see people brag about being reckless, irresonsible, and wasteful of resources they cannot afford to waste. > “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “I don’t think you know what you’re getting yourself into.” Friends who knew what they were talking about tried to warn him off. > My shifts consisted of a few leisurely hours chopping veg and prepping salad dressings. Any opportunity for experience is to be strictly avoided. "The law says I need to know how a restaurant works? I know better!" > My role was largely symbolic anyway No it wasn't. > As it turns out, no one invests in first-time restaurateurs, no matter how mind-blowing they think their cooking is. Man, I wonder why? More to the point, it's clear he never did. > I realized it was far from the downtown foodie scene [...] Admittedly, I had an ulterior motive: the place was a 10-minute walk from my house and close to the girls’ school He purposefully chose a bad location, knowing it was a bad location, because it was convenient for him. ...I've got to stop reading, this is actually enraging me. It's so dumb, and he seems so proud.

tw1010 9y ago
I think his behaviour is already well described by Carl Jung. His world view is skewed by mythology (like movies and hero worship) instead of by rational thought.
- icedchai 9y ago
  Not much different from some tech startup founders I’ve encountered.
- linkmotif 9y ago
  Any particular work by Jung you’re thinking of?
- jancsika 9y ago
  So was the world view of Richard Stallman in Richard Stallman's Sedentary, Physically-Debilitating Quest for the Gnolden Treasure. I'm not saying that you imply his wasn't equally skewed. Just that when I read about Stallman or other people who rightly attract admiration this truism tends to be conspicuously absent. But the mythology is just as strong there too-- a rational person would not take years to find out from a specialist that their chronic hand pain was due to repetition caused by an unreasonable amount of typing[1]. [1] https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html
  - AnkhMorporkian 9y ago
    Plenty of us dorks complain about Stallman's worldview and philosophy. I won't complain about the contributions he's made to computing, or even the world in general, but striking it lucky doesn't make you philosophically pure.
- cgag 9y ago
  Not going to get anywhere assuming you're in the bottom 80% and not trying.
  - tw1010 9y ago
    I don't think it's a strictly necessary attitude for success. Buffett seems like a good example of someone who manages to have a clear and rational mindset, yet with no trouble succeeding.
kakarot 9y ago
Every single successful entrepreneur in the food industry that I know, and most of the unsuccessful ones as well, work their asses off. I know this because I have worked in the food industry at every single level, from farming to sales to prep to cooking to event planning / catering to waiting tables to washing dishes. And for the most part, not established businesses but startups, where it is very easy to keep a close eye on the business decisions of the founders. I've seen a lot of different people fill those shoes. Their roles aren't symbolic, and it is an impressively grand delusion for a founder of any business to think as such. They are supposed to set an example for everyone else. Only one of my bosses could not understand this, and his business has sunk millions without turning a profit because, initially, he was lazy and would blame every problem on his workers, the industry, the weather, etc. instead of his own laziness and lack of planning skills. He didn't seek to eliminate his problems, he relished in them because they let him feel like things were out of his control. The rest of them worked themselves to the bone to provide good service and a good product. They took responsibility for all decisions and gave at least some thought before making stupid, risky decisions. Literally the first thing you do when creating a brick and mortar establishment is research the area and find where the most profitable location will be. This guy fucked up from day one, choosing laziness over rational thought, and then denies responsibility for it. This is downright pitiful and he deserves to lose every penny that he did.
mashgin 9y ago
Lol. Same here, I stopped reading after a while as it was pissing me off. How can someone be so dumb and explain it in excruciating detail. You brought up good points, there's a ton more. For ex. $3000 spent on lawyer to register a company, who later told him he could do it online for a couple hundred! This kind of information is just a few Google searches away these days.
52-6F-62 9y ago
To be fair, guys: find yourself in the right position in life and any act to try and enrich the thing you're calling life, enlighten yourself, and improve your lot will be considered irrational by somebody. Best take a few steps back. He's brazen, and maybe a bit dumb. I'd probably get along with calling him too proud, mostly. Now to reduce myself to platitudes: at least he did something. That's living. Who deserves in this life to try and come up with something new? I hope not only the few special people who were ever so lucky to be born into the right place, or have the right amount of money, or the timely and rational roadmap laid out before them like some kind of gospel whispered in their ear as if from above. For all your favourite painters, scientists, theorists, philosophers, chefs, writers, musicians, actors, even just general stop-gap-role human beings (as the preceding rhetoric might lead me to classify them—after all what kind of animal would admire a labourer[/s]), remember: there are millions who died in obscurity, having lived more or less than this goofball, or you, and most of them didn't offer up (or didn't have the chance to offer up) any insight so that you might avoid the same mistakes. It's not that you're necessarily wrong in what you're saying outright, but maybe something else. The unfortunate thing about social matters, is that social science is kind of trite—seemingly because it can't really be treated like science—the rules' changes depend on too many variables. I think that's the beauty of it. You're not assessing a matter that is purely business or financial or scientific. You're reading it from the wrong perspective. Put his shoes on and just listen and learn from the experience. I think that's all there is to it. This is why we share experiences. I mean, unless you know everything and have done it all already—then I'd love to hear more from you! On another note: if that's the response of an engineer, and their treatment of clients with a similar critique, let me know—I'll choose another bridge but those that such an engineer designed to cross any divide. I think the right response is to ask a question.
- AnkhMorporkian 9y ago
  > at least he did something. I mean no offense, because I do sorta appreciate what you're going for, but this is almost the most philosophically, semantically, and most sillily empty sentence that exists. Everyone does something. People who do 'nothing' do something. We only praise people whom succeed publicly or fail publicly. Even then, we only praise the people who fail when we ideologically align with them. We don't praise people who go out there and try to start a hate group, nor the ones who succeed. Trying isn't really something that should count to other people. I won't say it shouldn't count to the person who tried it; self-esteem is a very personal thing. Failure shouldn't necessarily be a bad thing personally either, but let's not pretend that it's usually a good thing. The vast majority of failures are just failures. Starting a bead store in 2017 isn't a good idea, and we shouldn't congratulate my mother-in-law for doing it and wasting 30k in investments, nor should we congratulate her investors. Edit: Also, can anyone tell me if I should have used 'who' or 'whom' here? I don't 'think' it's the direct object, but I will defer to someone else: 'We don't praise people who go out there and try to start a hate group'
AnkhMorporkian 9y ago
> It's so rare to see people brag about being reckless, irresonsible, and wasteful of resources they cannot afford to waste. I hate being sardonic, but we are on hacker news.
gpsx 9y ago
Have you ever heard the expression hindsight is 20/20? Yes, he made a lot of mistakes but it wasn't clear to him at the time. And of course he didn't know what he was bad at. We are all bad at several things. It's good to keep these things in mind, whether it is for a restaurant or a tech startup.
- ImSkeptical 9y ago
  He makes a lot of mistakes that are just inexcusable though. For example, just when fights through the painful start, he shuts the restaurant down to give everyone a week off. A week! I've never run a restaurant, but my guess is that it's difficult to make money while being closed. He doesn't do simple math to figure out how much money he'll need, what runway he has, or what he should be charging for his food. He pays three grand to incorporate a business, when a Google search tells him it could be done for far less. When he gets the opportunity to work for a few months in a restaurant, he squanders it. Sure, hindsight is twenty twenty, but a lot of these obstacles aren't hard to see coming. If you're going to gamble with your life savings, your friend's money, and your family's financial future, you should do the research and put the thought in to make sure you aren't throwing it all away.
djsumdog 9y ago
You know the story of the FedEx guy right? He could afford to pay the staff or put fuel in the planes; riveting speech; gambled the money in vegas and kept the company going. This guy is praised, but he was a fucking pyscho (literally). He didn't give a damn about his own staff and risked everything. He got lucky, made it big. If this guy had made it, we'd see him as a "The Hundred Foot Journey" style success story. Maybe the only lesson is that he wasn't ruthless enough?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Lazare 9y ago
  The thing about the FedEx guy and his story is that, at least as the story goes, he had a 100% chance of failure if he did nothing, and a possible chance of huge success if he gambled. Betting his last funds was all upside for him, so he made a cold-blooded decision to maximise his expected outcomes, and it paid off. The restaurant guy...not so much. He took significant assets (his pension, home equity, health, his relationship with his wife), and gambled them all on high downsides and very limited upsides. > Maybe the only lesson is that he wasn't ruthless enough? Ruthlessness is not a substitute for making very bad decisions.

by Lazare 9y ago

tw1010 9y ago

I think his behaviour is already well described by Carl Jung. His world view is skewed by mythology (like movies and hero worship) instead of by rational thought.

icedchai 9y ago
Not much different from some tech startup founders I’ve encountered.
linkmotif 9y ago
Any particular work by Jung you’re thinking of?
jancsika 9y ago
So was the world view of Richard Stallman in Richard Stallman's Sedentary, Physically-Debilitating Quest for the Gnolden Treasure. I'm not saying that you imply his wasn't equally skewed. Just that when I read about Stallman or other people who rightly attract admiration this truism tends to be conspicuously absent. But the mythology is just as strong there too-- a rational person would not take years to find out from a specialist that their chronic hand pain was due to repetition caused by an unreasonable amount of typing[1]. [1] https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html
- AnkhMorporkian 9y ago
  Plenty of us dorks complain about Stallman's worldview and philosophy. I won't complain about the contributions he's made to computing, or even the world in general, but striking it lucky doesn't make you philosophically pure.
cgag 9y ago
Not going to get anywhere assuming you're in the bottom 80% and not trying.
- tw1010 9y ago
  I don't think it's a strictly necessary attitude for success. Buffett seems like a good example of someone who manages to have a clear and rational mindset, yet with no trouble succeeding.

kakarot 9y ago

Every single successful entrepreneur in the food industry that I know, and most of the unsuccessful ones as well, work their asses off. I know this because I have worked in the food industry at every single level, from farming to sales to prep to cooking to event planning / catering to waiting tables to washing dishes. And for the most part, not established businesses but startups, where it is very easy to keep a close eye on the business decisions of the founders. I've seen a lot of different people fill those shoes. Their roles aren't symbolic, and it is an impressively grand delusion for a founder of any business to think as such. They are supposed to set an example for everyone else. Only one of my bosses could not understand this, and his business has sunk millions without turning a profit because, initially, he was lazy and would blame every problem on his workers, the industry, the weather, etc. instead of his own laziness and lack of planning skills. He didn't seek to eliminate his problems, he relished in them because they let him feel like things were out of his control. The rest of them worked themselves to the bone to provide good service and a good product. They took responsibility for all decisions and gave at least some thought before making stupid, risky decisions. Literally the first thing you do when creating a brick and mortar establishment is research the area and find where the most profitable location will be. This guy fucked up from day one, choosing laziness over rational thought, and then denies responsibility for it. This is downright pitiful and he deserves to lose every penny that he did.

mashgin 9y ago

Lol. Same here, I stopped reading after a while as it was pissing me off. How can someone be so dumb and explain it in excruciating detail. You brought up good points, there's a ton more. For ex. $3000 spent on lawyer to register a company, who later told him he could do it online for a couple hundred! This kind of information is just a few Google searches away these days.

52-6F-62 9y ago

To be fair, guys: find yourself in the right position in life and any act to try and enrich the thing you're calling life, enlighten yourself, and improve your lot will be considered irrational by somebody. Best take a few steps back. He's brazen, and maybe a bit dumb. I'd probably get along with calling him too proud, mostly. Now to reduce myself to platitudes: at least he did something. That's living. Who deserves in this life to try and come up with something new? I hope not only the few special people who were ever so lucky to be born into the right place, or have the right amount of money, or the timely and rational roadmap laid out before them like some kind of gospel whispered in their ear as if from above. For all your favourite painters, scientists, theorists, philosophers, chefs, writers, musicians, actors, even just general stop-gap-role human beings (as the preceding rhetoric might lead me to classify them—after all what kind of animal would admire a labourer[/s]), remember: there are millions who died in obscurity, having lived more or less than this goofball, or you, and most of them didn't offer up (or didn't have the chance to offer up) any insight so that you might avoid the same mistakes. It's not that you're necessarily wrong in what you're saying outright, but maybe something else. The unfortunate thing about social matters, is that social science is kind of trite—seemingly because it can't really be treated like science—the rules' changes depend on too many variables. I think that's the beauty of it. You're not assessing a matter that is purely business or financial or scientific. You're reading it from the wrong perspective. Put his shoes on and just listen and learn from the experience. I think that's all there is to it. This is why we share experiences. I mean, unless you know everything and have done it all already—then I'd love to hear more from you! On another note: if that's the response of an engineer, and their treatment of clients with a similar critique, let me know—I'll choose another bridge but those that such an engineer designed to cross any divide. I think the right response is to ask a question.

AnkhMorporkian 9y ago
> at least he did something. I mean no offense, because I do sorta appreciate what you're going for, but this is almost the most philosophically, semantically, and most sillily empty sentence that exists. Everyone does something. People who do 'nothing' do something. We only praise people whom succeed publicly or fail publicly. Even then, we only praise the people who fail when we ideologically align with them. We don't praise people who go out there and try to start a hate group, nor the ones who succeed. Trying isn't really something that should count to other people. I won't say it shouldn't count to the person who tried it; self-esteem is a very personal thing. Failure shouldn't necessarily be a bad thing personally either, but let's not pretend that it's usually a good thing. The vast majority of failures are just failures. Starting a bead store in 2017 isn't a good idea, and we shouldn't congratulate my mother-in-law for doing it and wasting 30k in investments, nor should we congratulate her investors. Edit: Also, can anyone tell me if I should have used 'who' or 'whom' here? I don't 'think' it's the direct object, but I will defer to someone else: 'We don't praise people who go out there and try to start a hate group'

AnkhMorporkian 9y ago

> It's so rare to see people brag about being reckless, irresonsible, and wasteful of resources they cannot afford to waste. I hate being sardonic, but we are on hacker news.

gpsx 9y ago

Have you ever heard the expression hindsight is 20/20? Yes, he made a lot of mistakes but it wasn't clear to him at the time. And of course he didn't know what he was bad at. We are all bad at several things. It's good to keep these things in mind, whether it is for a restaurant or a tech startup.

ImSkeptical 9y ago
He makes a lot of mistakes that are just inexcusable though. For example, just when fights through the painful start, he shuts the restaurant down to give everyone a week off. A week! I've never run a restaurant, but my guess is that it's difficult to make money while being closed. He doesn't do simple math to figure out how much money he'll need, what runway he has, or what he should be charging for his food. He pays three grand to incorporate a business, when a Google search tells him it could be done for far less. When he gets the opportunity to work for a few months in a restaurant, he squanders it. Sure, hindsight is twenty twenty, but a lot of these obstacles aren't hard to see coming. If you're going to gamble with your life savings, your friend's money, and your family's financial future, you should do the research and put the thought in to make sure you aren't throwing it all away.

djsumdog 9y ago

You know the story of the FedEx guy right? He could afford to pay the staff or put fuel in the planes; riveting speech; gambled the money in vegas and kept the company going. This guy is praised, but he was a fucking pyscho (literally). He didn't give a damn about his own staff and risked everything. He got lucky, made it big. If this guy had made it, we'd see him as a "The Hundred Foot Journey" style success story. Maybe the only lesson is that he wasn't ruthless enough?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Lazare 9y ago
The thing about the FedEx guy and his story is that, at least as the story goes, he had a 100% chance of failure if he did nothing, and a possible chance of huge success if he gambled. Betting his last funds was all upside for him, so he made a cold-blooded decision to maximise his expected outcomes, and it paid off. The restaurant guy...not so much. He took significant assets (his pension, home equity, health, his relationship with his wife), and gambled them all on high downsides and very limited upsides. > Maybe the only lesson is that he wasn't ruthless enough? Ruthlessness is not a substitute for making very bad decisions.