4 ms·
As always, PG's done a good job of writing a thought-provoking and highly readable essay. I'm hardly qualified to comment one way or another about the ins and o
by stevenbedrick 16y ago
As always, PG's done a good job of writing a thought-provoking and highly readable essay. I'm hardly qualified to comment one way or another about the ins and outs of startup financing- I'm willing to assume that he's got the facts right on those aspects of the essay- but one part of the essay stuck out at me like a sore thumb: (talking about YCombinator's "competition" with employers)
<blockquote>
Nearly all customers choose the competing product, a job. Why? Well, let's look at the product we're offering. An unbiased review would go something like this:
Starting a startup gives you more freedom and the opportunity to make a lot more money than a job, but it's also hard work and at times very stressful.
</blockquote>
I'd say that this represents about 80% of an "unbiased review". The missing 20%? "... it's also hard work, and at times very stressful, <em>and the odds are very much against all of that hard work and stress paying off for you in any kind of direct, financial way.</em>"
- pg 16y agoI wouldn't put that in the product review because it's more a feature of the user than the product. E.g. it wouldn't be accurate to say in a product review of running shoes "you are going to run slow in these shoes" even if on average that's what people did.
- Eliezer 16y agoWho, considering working their first startup job, can possibly end up in an epistemic state of knowing that their hard work will pay off? How could you reasonably end up assigning a confidence of more than 50% without it being sheer naked Lake Wobegon effect and overconfidence? If no one can possibly get rid of this uncertainty, it ought to be part of the unbiased review.
- pbiggar 16y agoIn case I'm reading too much into this, am I right in think that you believe startups are _not_ risky? If so, then that changes nearly everything that people understand about startups.
- pg 16y agoI'm saying that while there is a large random multiplier in everyone's outcome, the risk of total failure varies enormously with the founders. Some founders have a near 0% chance of total failure. Others (a larger number) have a near 100% chance. So while this means on average the change of a startup succeeding is 1/n, quoting that stat as part of the description of a startup would be misleading, because for a small number of people it's just not true, just as for a small number of fast runners it would not be true that they'd run slow in the shoes, whatever the average person did.