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Are You A Pirate?

282 points by GVRV 16y ago

michaelhart 16y ago
This might just be my favorite post on TechCrunch.
- messel 16y ago
  Posts from the heart are a potent brew, and that one certainly came from somewhere deep inside of Mr. Arrington. Mike can say that it's not about winning or losing, it's about playing the game now that he's "won".
andre3k1 16y ago
> Most people have an aversion to risk, my college economics professor told me. Which means they have to be rewarded to take on that risk. The higher the risk, the higher the possible payout has to be for people to jump. Here's a followup question your freshman econ professor would have asked: > Should we create incentives to reward entrepreneurs for their risk aversion? Or should we leave it exclusively up to the free markets to offer the reward? In other words, if an idea fails should society step in and help the entrepreneur out (thus creating an incentive for him to further innovate)?
- lunaru 16y ago
  Sorry, but society shouldn't have to bail out a failed social network for puppies. For entrepreneurship there is already enough reward for the risk. It's not just monetary gains we're talking about. For one, you get to call the shots and that's worth more to some people than money. (http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html)
  - edanm 16y ago
    "For entrepreneurship there is already enough reward for the risk." Maybe that's true now, but it isn't a tautology. For example, pg has mentioned that a few centuries ago, people didn't keep the wealth they made (it was handed over to royalty), which made it so there were no incentives, which severely lowered entrepreneurship. Society has to work at making sure the balance of incentives is "correct" (correct in the sense that that's what that society wants.) So asking about one potential way society can help increase risk-taking is perfectly valid and reasonable.
messel 16y ago
Ninja
patio11 16y ago
There is a lot to unpack in the idea that people get utility out of risk itself. Personally I think many of them get utility out of things which can be sensibly extricated from risk. A lot of folks relish the social aspect of working in a startup (us versus the world, shared triumph over aversely, counterculture as the norm, etc): I think you can replicate that without 90% of them failing. (I hold other heresies such as that you can replicate it without 90 hour work weeks, too - the ninety hour workweek is the talking parrot, which doesn't really do anything for us but we know that it isn't a proper pirate ship without a parrot, and we cling to this even when it bites our fingers and defecates on our pirate boots.)
- tyng 16y ago
  I remember my college economics professor always made the point that "risk-averse consumers" are the rational decision makers in our economy. I almost totally believed him, and thought hack who'd be that dumb kid taking the extra risk without being benefited from it. Well, now I realise, that dumb kid is me!
- jamesbritt 16y ago
  "the ninety hour workweek is the talking parrot" Sweet metaphor. Thanks.
  - zackattack 16y ago
    I would love to see some counter-examples where 90 hour weeks actually do power superior performance: investment banking; Mahalo.com; etc.
    - ryanwaggoner 16y ago
      I don't think either of those are examples of superior performance.
    - jacquesm 16y ago
      90 hour workweeks come with an undocumented feature, the < 50 years old heart attack. For a little while, say a couple of weeks it's ok to push yourself like that it if it is actual work, and something you do not enjoy. If your work is play to you you might get away with it. But anybody that pushes themselves like that is going to find out a few things: - there is a price - the price includes an interest - your 90 hour workweek is on a per-hour basis not as productive as a 50 hour workweek would be Also, just like in computers, works smarter, not harder.
andysinclair 16y ago
Wow, excellent article from Arrington. I like the analogy, and I can relate to the attraction of spending your life "at sea". The prospect of striking gold is not what attracted me to work for myself, it is the lifestyle. The unknown nature of startup life is also attractive. At my previous job I knew I would be at my desk every day doing the same thing - now I have no idea where I will be or what exactly I will be doing from week to week, and that is very appealing to me. And risk/reward? Who cares, just enjoy the adventure!
metamemetics 16y ago
> They don’t need to be rewarded for risk, because they actually get utility out of risk itself. In other words, they like adventure. Completely flawed. Every sane person seeks to reduce risk. What entrepreneurs also seek is to maximize gains. Increased risk is merely often required to do so.
- barrkel 16y ago
  I don't agree. "Sane" people introduces something which is frequently a false dichotomy; whether you are driven by your rationality, or by more visceral and deep-seated spirits. The problem is the difference between rationality and enlightened rationality: what is good for you personally in the short term, versus what is good for everybody in the longer term. These things can give contradictory advice, and both can be labeled as rational. But the second isn't intuitive to most people: it generally needs to be supplied from somewhere else, usually emotions. Let's say you need to get drinking water from the river, but there are crocodiles down there too. If you minimize your risk, you'll get just enough water for yourself. On the other hand, if you get more than enough water, you'll be able to share your surplus, increase your social standing, find a more attractive mate, etc. Ah! you say - but the "minimizing risk" here isn't actually minimizing risk, but increasing another risk, a risk that you'll never get anywhere in life, won't raise a family and pass on your genes, etc. But that's an intellectual risk. It's not likely to dawn on you unless you're quite introspected, or perhaps until it's too late and you're in relative middle age. What if there was a different mechanism? What if exploring the boundaries of your capability, your talents, was its own reward? You can't explore those boundaries without risk of failure, even where failure might include death. A simple mechanism for that could be risk homeostasis, whereby a certain manageable amount of risk becomes its own visceral reward, attracting you to those boundaries and encouraging you to expand them. In other words, getting utility out of risk itself - "liking adventure".
  - metamemetics 16y ago
    > What if exploring the boundaries of your capability, your talents, was its own reward? Then you're gaining something (discovery of new assets, freedom, happiness, sense of accomplishment, self-actualization, etc.) and seeking to maximize gains. Risk does not magically become utility. If gains are held constant, nearly everyone chooses the one with less risk because it has a higher expected value. Entrepreneurs are gain maximizers. Risk is only _ utility _ in the case of masochism.
ericflo 16y ago
Great article, and definitely a feel-good for people who are starting their own businesses! However, I wonder if all entrepreneurs are like he describes. In fact his description is almost at odds with what Zuckerberg said at Startup School, about simply building things because you like building things. I think at the end of the day there's many motivations for doing something as bold as building a company, and everybody has a different mix of those motivations.
- JofArnold 16y ago
  I feel it's absolutely in keeping with that. "What if..." is a sign of curiosity, exploration, creativity, imagination and a modest disregard for the risk. - "What if I climb down that cliff... will I find a beautiful and isolated beach?" (Versus: fall to death) - "What if I sail this ship a bit further? Will the next island be more bountiful than the last?" (Versus: crash on rocks) - "What if I replace this diode with an LED? Will the effects circuit sound better?" (Versus: break the effects pedal) And so on.
- bbhacker 16y ago
  I can't help but think that that this statement of "building things because you like building things" was very scripted at Startup School. The reaction of the crowd was 100% predictable and it was a very smart move and completely re-framed the movie and all the other bad publicity around Facebook. "Their argument/story/point of view is not valid because they don't understand that you can just build things because you like building things" - 100% crowdpleaser. He is not addressing the issues, he is completely reframing it. If you look for more examples check out the movie "Thank you for smoking": The question is not whether smoking is good or bad for you or whether we knew about that. The argument is whether we should make decisions for the people of this country or if it is their freedom to make their own decisions.
  - fraserharris 16y ago
    Great insight bbhacker. Mr. Zuckerberg's quip did not sound off the cuff.
JofArnold 16y ago
Might help to break down the concept of "risk" in this context: - Part A: Seeing a distant island full of fruit and thinking "Wow, I'm totally going there - screw everyone else who's just eating potatoes around here." - Part B: Choosing to make a boat rather than jumping straight in the sea and risking drowning or death by shark. So the goal itself is risky and/or unknown, but it doesn't mean you have to do stupid or excessively risky things to get there. There's a lot of overlap between scouting/explorer/pirate behaviour and entrepreneurship - certainly for me. The very same thing that keeps me going as an entrepreneur sees me exploring/climbing and hiking in dangerous but beautiful places. It's an odd personality trait, but one that's evolutionarily advantageous (now the islanders have all the fruit they need) :)
random42 16y ago
I don’t care if you’re a billionaire. If you haven’t started a company, really gambled your resume and your money and maybe even your marriage to just go crazy and try something on your own, you’re no pirate and you aren’t in the club. I do appreciate the risks pirates take, this however, does not devalue the role of a peasant or a cobbler or a prime minister or a soldier to the society. Its narrow minded to establish one work to be better than the other. Be pirate, if you think, you are best suited for it. There is NO shame in doing something else, for which you are better suited either.
- robryan 16y ago
  He isn't saying one is better than the other. He is merely stating that there will be certain things you won't be able to identify with that entrepreneurs can.
  - random42 16y ago
    I do realize that he is not say this article, however I just feel that there is a lot of false sense of grandeur associated with being a entrepreneur.
erikstarck 16y ago
While I like the entrepreneur-as-a-pirate-rebel sentiment it's not the risk that attracts me but the desire to change the world and build stuff that other people find value in. To build something that other people use is an ego boost. To build something that other people _pay for_ is even better.
jeffmiller 16y ago
A fun read, but basically another "entrepreneurs are superheroes" article. It seems unlikely that anyone would get utility out of risk itself, independently of the reward. But many people, given the choice of two scenarios with equal risk/reward ratios, tend to choose the scenario with the higher risk numerator. "Bet big or go home".
- andysinclair 16y ago
  Totally disagree, lots of people get utility out of the risk itself, and this is the main theme of the article.
  - jeffmiller 16y ago
    Example?
    - whatusername 16y ago
      Extreme Sports? Utility from the risk itself is the whole point of Base Jumping.
      - jeffmiller 16y ago
        Base jumping doesn't seem related to the article at hand.
        barrkel 16y ago
        It's related to the utility of risk.
      - smalter 16y ago
        i have to agree with the op. i think you can't, e.g. for entrepreneurs, disentangle risk from reward. similarly, with base jumping, risk itself can't be disentangled from the thrill of speed. for instance, i like to snowboard because it gives me the thrill of speed, which is tightly bound up with the sense of being on the edge of control and being out of control.
nikcub 16y ago
This is what differentiates Arrington (and a rare few others) from a lot of other experts/bloggers - he is writing from the trenches, from the bottom of his heart/gut and from experience. There are a lot of bloggers and self-proclaimed experts who are posers. (Disclaimer: former tc employee)
- deleted 16y ago
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mcritz 16y ago
One less lawyer.
elvirs 16y ago
looks like cash from AOL has really inspired Mike to advocate being pirate:) just kidding :)
credo 16y ago
I see it a bit differently. For me, the risk-taking comes partly from a confidence (that could sometimes be characterized as over-optimism) and partly from the feeling that my gains from the risk are worth it. I like adventure, but I don't fall into the category of "They don’t need to be rewarded for risk, because they actually get utility out of risk itself." people. Taking a risk (e.g. quitting my (Principal Dev manager) job at Microsoft and creating a startup) is rewarding in itself (regardless of how well the company does financially). However, for me, the primary reward is not the risk. The reward is what I get from taking the risk (e.g. work on more interesting stuff)
nanijoe 16y ago
Let's just be clear here, pirates were thieves, not the swashbuckling heroes we see in movies today.
- araneae 16y ago
  Right, and there's a lot of good research into why people become criminals, and most do not do it because they're thrill seekers. Instead, it mostly has to do with their expected costs and benefits, just like any other choice. If one comes from a poor background and lives in a society with poor upward mobility, your quality of life as well as life expectancy is low anyway, so the risk of crime is less severe compared to the expected gains. No wealthy people became pirates. If risk aversion/attraction was all there was to it, they would.
- Nick_C 16y ago
  That's true, many were. That was mostly in the Caribbean. There were also (I would say the majority) private ships operating under a government licence, the letter of marque, where they could do anything to the enemy's shipping to "take, burn or destroy". That was mostly in the Channel and the south americas. And there was a big grey area where a ship might be thieving on one occasion and operating under a letter of marque on another. As with most history, it all depends on who was telling the story afterwards.
- nickpinkston 16y ago
  Though let's also be clear that piracy was often a legal activity by the pirates' home country, and that the offcial navy was engaging in the same activity - but they needed more help from mercenaries: the pirates. Is Iraq with our Army and Blackwater mercs really any different?
- jacobolus 16y ago
  I recommend Kevin Phillips’s book Wealth and Democracy. One of the more interesting things I learned was that many of the pirates in the Caribbean in the late 18th century were sailing out of Boston and Salem, tasked by the US government with capturing British ships, and that many of America’s great early fortunes were earned from piracy. http://books.google.com/books?id=sPHP4uUFQgEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA13 http://books.google.com/books?id=sPHP4uUFQgEC&lpg=PP1&#3... * * * Anyway, how do you decide who is the thief when we’re talking about stealing from boats trading in plunder, slaves, or products produced by slave labor, as was the case for an awful lot of what got shipped around the Atlantic for many centuries?
voodootikigod 16y ago
This article is a flaming piece of crap, like most of techcrunch, designed to do little more than inflate egos and rouse people to come back to the profiteering gluttons that, by the way, make up most of his "circle of friends". You want to see a better rallying call for change, try this: http://goo.gl/hMH8 http://goo.gl/hMH8
ditojim 16y ago
yarr
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
brisance 16y ago
"It's better to be a pirate than join the navy" http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Pirate_Flag.txt http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Pirate_Flag.txt
deleted 16y ago
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siglesias 16y ago
Ok all, we're going to settle this once and for all. I'll work with my prof (behavioral economics) tomorrow to set up a risk profile questionnaire (like an advanced Ask HN) and we'll know by Tuesday how well this claim holds up, empirically. (edit: unless we're comfortable making claims about risk preference WITHOUT data...) edit 2: these are specialized, refined tests that construct risk preference from a number of decisions from hypothetical situations. Assessing risk preference is not a simple manner of direct question (ex: "Hi, are you risk tolerant or risk averse?") or introspection.
- deltasquare4 16y ago
  That would be awesome. Looking forward to it.
- bali 16y ago
  Just because something is complicated doesn't mean necessarily that it's more accurate or true (a funny illustration: http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/360419/a-dream-within-a-dream http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/360419/a-dream-within-...) I have constructed preference profiles with conjoint and other "complicated" methods many times for big companies and believe me: they only scratch the surface of human behavior, most of it is not valid. Everybody may have his/her own reason for being an entrepreneur. I see this discussion and Arrington's article as well (besides maybe preparing the ground to quit:) more as an emotional discourse to justify why we do what we do. I have these discussions with my friend and bus. partner all the time and I really enjoy feeling superior to employees, but I know in the back of my brain that it's somewhat unfair. Anyhow, as for myself, I love to do it because of the lifestyle, because I love to create something, because I can wake up late and work during the night, because I am in control of my professional life and decisions and perhaps most importantly because I hate to know what's gonna happen the next day, next month which is inevitable with a normal job. My life is over as soon as I am locked in a job + family + everyday routines + stop being curious and open. I would die. I would know how it is going to end, just wouldn't know when. Just to avoid the latter and achieve the former I am risking right now nearly everything stable I have had in life (friends, family, nice job ($1M in 5-6 years), house, perspective of a relaxed long life) (don't misunderstand the family part, i believe that is the most important element of a happy life, but it decreases your "degrees of freedom", if you see what i mean) Ah, that was the word I was looking for, freedom :)
addoway 16y ago
There is no life quite like the pirate life and I haven't looked back once since leaving Corporate America to start the Addoway marketplace even if people still believe that starting a marketplace is almost as impossible as Arrington dunking a basketball. lol. I always said there is no sense in dreaming if you can never make any of them a reality. Entrepreneurs dream just like everyone else does, but the difference between us and the rest is that we act on our dreams no matter how crazy they might sound. You only get one shot at this life, one true shot to make a difference - you have to make it count! A great post to start a Sunday!
jaxn 16y ago
I completed a survey on entrepreneurship the other day for a local college kid's project. There was a multiple-choice question asking why I became an entrepreneur. The options were things like "being my own boss", "working from a preferred location", and "making more money". I had to choose "other" and write in "I can't not do this." It is an almost uncontrollable urge. I think it could be safe to say that kind of compulsion limits my ability to do a really good risk assessment. So far it works for me though :)
- gregpilling 16y ago
  I feel exactly the same way. Should I find myself with an extra million in the bank, it would not change the feeling. There is a particular rush from making your ideas into reality.
adhipg 16y ago
Is this a resignation letter? Are AOL listening?
swah 16y ago
Anyone else avoided these post thinking it was about Torrent or something?
davidst 16y ago
For fools rush in where angels fear to tread. -- Alexander Pope I've come to believe that people who create startups must be, by definition, entirely unqualified for the job. If they were truly qualified they would have some idea of what they were getting themselves into and they would avoid it. Hence, only unqualified people embark on the adventure. There is, however, an up-side to being unqualified: The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation. -- Pearl S. Buck The young and foolish change the world.
mkramlich 16y ago
When Arrington's on as a writer, he's on.

Are You A Pirate?

282 points by GVRV 16y ago

michaelhart 16y ago

This might just be my favorite post on TechCrunch.

messel 16y ago
Posts from the heart are a potent brew, and that one certainly came from somewhere deep inside of Mr. Arrington. Mike can say that it's not about winning or losing, it's about playing the game now that he's "won".

andre3k1 16y ago

> Most people have an aversion to risk, my college economics professor told me. Which means they have to be rewarded to take on that risk. The higher the risk, the higher the possible payout has to be for people to jump. Here's a followup question your freshman econ professor would have asked: > Should we create incentives to reward entrepreneurs for their risk aversion? Or should we leave it exclusively up to the free markets to offer the reward? In other words, if an idea fails should society step in and help the entrepreneur out (thus creating an incentive for him to further innovate)?

lunaru 16y ago
Sorry, but society shouldn't have to bail out a failed social network for puppies. For entrepreneurship there is already enough reward for the risk. It's not just monetary gains we're talking about. For one, you get to call the shots and that's worth more to some people than money. (http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html)
- edanm 16y ago
  "For entrepreneurship there is already enough reward for the risk." Maybe that's true now, but it isn't a tautology. For example, pg has mentioned that a few centuries ago, people didn't keep the wealth they made (it was handed over to royalty), which made it so there were no incentives, which severely lowered entrepreneurship. Society has to work at making sure the balance of incentives is "correct" (correct in the sense that that's what that society wants.) So asking about one potential way society can help increase risk-taking is perfectly valid and reasonable.

messel 16y ago

Ninja

patio11 16y ago

There is a lot to unpack in the idea that people get utility out of risk itself. Personally I think many of them get utility out of things which can be sensibly extricated from risk. A lot of folks relish the social aspect of working in a startup (us versus the world, shared triumph over aversely, counterculture as the norm, etc): I think you can replicate that without 90% of them failing. (I hold other heresies such as that you can replicate it without 90 hour work weeks, too - the ninety hour workweek is the talking parrot, which doesn't really do anything for us but we know that it isn't a proper pirate ship without a parrot, and we cling to this even when it bites our fingers and defecates on our pirate boots.)

tyng 16y ago
I remember my college economics professor always made the point that "risk-averse consumers" are the rational decision makers in our economy. I almost totally believed him, and thought hack who'd be that dumb kid taking the extra risk without being benefited from it. Well, now I realise, that dumb kid is me!
jamesbritt 16y ago
"the ninety hour workweek is the talking parrot" Sweet metaphor. Thanks.
- zackattack 16y ago
  I would love to see some counter-examples where 90 hour weeks actually do power superior performance: investment banking; Mahalo.com; etc.
  - ryanwaggoner 16y ago
    I don't think either of those are examples of superior performance.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    90 hour workweeks come with an undocumented feature, the < 50 years old heart attack. For a little while, say a couple of weeks it's ok to push yourself like that it if it is actual work, and something you do not enjoy. If your work is play to you you might get away with it. But anybody that pushes themselves like that is going to find out a few things: - there is a price - the price includes an interest - your 90 hour workweek is on a per-hour basis not as productive as a 50 hour workweek would be Also, just like in computers, works smarter, not harder.

andysinclair 16y ago

Wow, excellent article from Arrington. I like the analogy, and I can relate to the attraction of spending your life "at sea". The prospect of striking gold is not what attracted me to work for myself, it is the lifestyle. The unknown nature of startup life is also attractive. At my previous job I knew I would be at my desk every day doing the same thing - now I have no idea where I will be or what exactly I will be doing from week to week, and that is very appealing to me. And risk/reward? Who cares, just enjoy the adventure!

metamemetics 16y ago

> They don’t need to be rewarded for risk, because they actually get utility out of risk itself. In other words, they like adventure. Completely flawed. Every sane person seeks to reduce risk. What entrepreneurs also seek is to maximize gains. Increased risk is merely often required to do so.

barrkel 16y ago
I don't agree. "Sane" people introduces something which is frequently a false dichotomy; whether you are driven by your rationality, or by more visceral and deep-seated spirits. The problem is the difference between rationality and enlightened rationality: what is good for you personally in the short term, versus what is good for everybody in the longer term. These things can give contradictory advice, and both can be labeled as rational. But the second isn't intuitive to most people: it generally needs to be supplied from somewhere else, usually emotions. Let's say you need to get drinking water from the river, but there are crocodiles down there too. If you minimize your risk, you'll get just enough water for yourself. On the other hand, if you get more than enough water, you'll be able to share your surplus, increase your social standing, find a more attractive mate, etc. Ah! you say - but the "minimizing risk" here isn't actually minimizing risk, but increasing another risk, a risk that you'll never get anywhere in life, won't raise a family and pass on your genes, etc. But that's an intellectual risk. It's not likely to dawn on you unless you're quite introspected, or perhaps until it's too late and you're in relative middle age. What if there was a different mechanism? What if exploring the boundaries of your capability, your talents, was its own reward? You can't explore those boundaries without risk of failure, even where failure might include death. A simple mechanism for that could be risk homeostasis, whereby a certain manageable amount of risk becomes its own visceral reward, attracting you to those boundaries and encouraging you to expand them. In other words, getting utility out of risk itself - "liking adventure".
- metamemetics 16y ago
  > What if exploring the boundaries of your capability, your talents, was its own reward? Then you're gaining something (discovery of new assets, freedom, happiness, sense of accomplishment, self-actualization, etc.) and seeking to maximize gains. Risk does not magically become utility. If gains are held constant, nearly everyone chooses the one with less risk because it has a higher expected value. Entrepreneurs are gain maximizers. Risk is only _ utility _ in the case of masochism.

ericflo 16y ago

Great article, and definitely a feel-good for people who are starting their own businesses! However, I wonder if all entrepreneurs are like he describes. In fact his description is almost at odds with what Zuckerberg said at Startup School, about simply building things because you like building things. I think at the end of the day there's many motivations for doing something as bold as building a company, and everybody has a different mix of those motivations.

JofArnold 16y ago
I feel it's absolutely in keeping with that. "What if..." is a sign of curiosity, exploration, creativity, imagination and a modest disregard for the risk. - "What if I climb down that cliff... will I find a beautiful and isolated beach?" (Versus: fall to death) - "What if I sail this ship a bit further? Will the next island be more bountiful than the last?" (Versus: crash on rocks) - "What if I replace this diode with an LED? Will the effects circuit sound better?" (Versus: break the effects pedal) And so on.
bbhacker 16y ago
I can't help but think that that this statement of "building things because you like building things" was very scripted at Startup School. The reaction of the crowd was 100% predictable and it was a very smart move and completely re-framed the movie and all the other bad publicity around Facebook. "Their argument/story/point of view is not valid because they don't understand that you can just build things because you like building things" - 100% crowdpleaser. He is not addressing the issues, he is completely reframing it. If you look for more examples check out the movie "Thank you for smoking": The question is not whether smoking is good or bad for you or whether we knew about that. The argument is whether we should make decisions for the people of this country or if it is their freedom to make their own decisions.
- fraserharris 16y ago
  Great insight bbhacker. Mr. Zuckerberg's quip did not sound off the cuff.

JofArnold 16y ago

Might help to break down the concept of "risk" in this context: - Part A: Seeing a distant island full of fruit and thinking "Wow, I'm totally going there - screw everyone else who's just eating potatoes around here." - Part B: Choosing to make a boat rather than jumping straight in the sea and risking drowning or death by shark. So the goal itself is risky and/or unknown, but it doesn't mean you have to do stupid or excessively risky things to get there. There's a lot of overlap between scouting/explorer/pirate behaviour and entrepreneurship - certainly for me. The very same thing that keeps me going as an entrepreneur sees me exploring/climbing and hiking in dangerous but beautiful places. It's an odd personality trait, but one that's evolutionarily advantageous (now the islanders have all the fruit they need) :)

random42 16y ago

I don’t care if you’re a billionaire. If you haven’t started a company, really gambled your resume and your money and maybe even your marriage to just go crazy and try something on your own, you’re no pirate and you aren’t in the club. I do appreciate the risks pirates take, this however, does not devalue the role of a peasant or a cobbler or a prime minister or a soldier to the society. Its narrow minded to establish one work to be better than the other. Be pirate, if you think, you are best suited for it. There is NO shame in doing something else, for which you are better suited either.

robryan 16y ago
He isn't saying one is better than the other. He is merely stating that there will be certain things you won't be able to identify with that entrepreneurs can.
- random42 16y ago
  I do realize that he is not say this article, however I just feel that there is a lot of false sense of grandeur associated with being a entrepreneur.

erikstarck 16y ago

While I like the entrepreneur-as-a-pirate-rebel sentiment it's not the risk that attracts me but the desire to change the world and build stuff that other people find value in. To build something that other people use is an ego boost. To build something that other people _pay for_ is even better.

jeffmiller 16y ago

A fun read, but basically another "entrepreneurs are superheroes" article. It seems unlikely that anyone would get utility out of risk itself, independently of the reward. But many people, given the choice of two scenarios with equal risk/reward ratios, tend to choose the scenario with the higher risk numerator. "Bet big or go home".

andysinclair 16y ago
Totally disagree, lots of people get utility out of the risk itself, and this is the main theme of the article.
- jeffmiller 16y ago
  Example?
  - whatusername 16y ago
    Extreme Sports? Utility from the risk itself is the whole point of Base Jumping.
    - jeffmiller 16y ago
      Base jumping doesn't seem related to the article at hand.
      - barrkel 16y ago
        It's related to the utility of risk.
    - smalter 16y ago
      i have to agree with the op. i think you can't, e.g. for entrepreneurs, disentangle risk from reward. similarly, with base jumping, risk itself can't be disentangled from the thrill of speed. for instance, i like to snowboard because it gives me the thrill of speed, which is tightly bound up with the sense of being on the edge of control and being out of control.

nikcub 16y ago

This is what differentiates Arrington (and a rare few others) from a lot of other experts/bloggers - he is writing from the trenches, from the bottom of his heart/gut and from experience. There are a lot of bloggers and self-proclaimed experts who are posers. (Disclaimer: former tc employee)

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

mcritz 16y ago

One less lawyer.

elvirs 16y ago

looks like cash from AOL has really inspired Mike to advocate being pirate:) just kidding :)

credo 16y ago

I see it a bit differently. For me, the risk-taking comes partly from a confidence (that could sometimes be characterized as over-optimism) and partly from the feeling that my gains from the risk are worth it. I like adventure, but I don't fall into the category of "They don’t need to be rewarded for risk, because they actually get utility out of risk itself." people. Taking a risk (e.g. quitting my (Principal Dev manager) job at Microsoft and creating a startup) is rewarding in itself (regardless of how well the company does financially). However, for me, the primary reward is not the risk. The reward is what I get from taking the risk (e.g. work on more interesting stuff)

nanijoe 16y ago

Let's just be clear here, pirates were thieves, not the swashbuckling heroes we see in movies today.

araneae 16y ago
Right, and there's a lot of good research into why people become criminals, and most do not do it because they're thrill seekers. Instead, it mostly has to do with their expected costs and benefits, just like any other choice. If one comes from a poor background and lives in a society with poor upward mobility, your quality of life as well as life expectancy is low anyway, so the risk of crime is less severe compared to the expected gains. No wealthy people became pirates. If risk aversion/attraction was all there was to it, they would.
Nick_C 16y ago
That's true, many were. That was mostly in the Caribbean. There were also (I would say the majority) private ships operating under a government licence, the letter of marque, where they could do anything to the enemy's shipping to "take, burn or destroy". That was mostly in the Channel and the south americas. And there was a big grey area where a ship might be thieving on one occasion and operating under a letter of marque on another. As with most history, it all depends on who was telling the story afterwards.
nickpinkston 16y ago
Though let's also be clear that piracy was often a legal activity by the pirates' home country, and that the offcial navy was engaging in the same activity - but they needed more help from mercenaries: the pirates. Is Iraq with our Army and Blackwater mercs really any different?
jacobolus 16y ago
I recommend Kevin Phillips’s book Wealth and Democracy. One of the more interesting things I learned was that many of the pirates in the Caribbean in the late 18th century were sailing out of Boston and Salem, tasked by the US government with capturing British ships, and that many of America’s great early fortunes were earned from piracy. http://books.google.com/books?id=sPHP4uUFQgEC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA13 http://books.google.com/books?id=sPHP4uUFQgEC&lpg=PP1&#3... * * * Anyway, how do you decide who is the thief when we’re talking about stealing from boats trading in plunder, slaves, or products produced by slave labor, as was the case for an awful lot of what got shipped around the Atlantic for many centuries?

voodootikigod 16y ago

This article is a flaming piece of crap, like most of techcrunch, designed to do little more than inflate egos and rouse people to come back to the profiteering gluttons that, by the way, make up most of his "circle of friends". You want to see a better rallying call for change, try this: http://goo.gl/hMH8 http://goo.gl/hMH8

ditojim 16y ago

yarr

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brisance 16y ago

"It's better to be a pirate than join the navy" http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Pirate_Flag.txt http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Pirate_Flag.txt

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siglesias 16y ago

Ok all, we're going to settle this once and for all. I'll work with my prof (behavioral economics) tomorrow to set up a risk profile questionnaire (like an advanced Ask HN) and we'll know by Tuesday how well this claim holds up, empirically. (edit: unless we're comfortable making claims about risk preference WITHOUT data...) edit 2: these are specialized, refined tests that construct risk preference from a number of decisions from hypothetical situations. Assessing risk preference is not a simple manner of direct question (ex: "Hi, are you risk tolerant or risk averse?") or introspection.

deltasquare4 16y ago
That would be awesome. Looking forward to it.
bali 16y ago
Just because something is complicated doesn't mean necessarily that it's more accurate or true (a funny illustration: http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/360419/a-dream-within-a-dream http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/360419/a-dream-within-...) I have constructed preference profiles with conjoint and other "complicated" methods many times for big companies and believe me: they only scratch the surface of human behavior, most of it is not valid. Everybody may have his/her own reason for being an entrepreneur. I see this discussion and Arrington's article as well (besides maybe preparing the ground to quit:) more as an emotional discourse to justify why we do what we do. I have these discussions with my friend and bus. partner all the time and I really enjoy feeling superior to employees, but I know in the back of my brain that it's somewhat unfair. Anyhow, as for myself, I love to do it because of the lifestyle, because I love to create something, because I can wake up late and work during the night, because I am in control of my professional life and decisions and perhaps most importantly because I hate to know what's gonna happen the next day, next month which is inevitable with a normal job. My life is over as soon as I am locked in a job + family + everyday routines + stop being curious and open. I would die. I would know how it is going to end, just wouldn't know when. Just to avoid the latter and achieve the former I am risking right now nearly everything stable I have had in life (friends, family, nice job ($1M in 5-6 years), house, perspective of a relaxed long life) (don't misunderstand the family part, i believe that is the most important element of a happy life, but it decreases your "degrees of freedom", if you see what i mean) Ah, that was the word I was looking for, freedom :)

addoway 16y ago

There is no life quite like the pirate life and I haven't looked back once since leaving Corporate America to start the Addoway marketplace even if people still believe that starting a marketplace is almost as impossible as Arrington dunking a basketball. lol. I always said there is no sense in dreaming if you can never make any of them a reality. Entrepreneurs dream just like everyone else does, but the difference between us and the rest is that we act on our dreams no matter how crazy they might sound. You only get one shot at this life, one true shot to make a difference - you have to make it count! A great post to start a Sunday!

jaxn 16y ago

I completed a survey on entrepreneurship the other day for a local college kid's project. There was a multiple-choice question asking why I became an entrepreneur. The options were things like "being my own boss", "working from a preferred location", and "making more money". I had to choose "other" and write in "I can't not do this." It is an almost uncontrollable urge. I think it could be safe to say that kind of compulsion limits my ability to do a really good risk assessment. So far it works for me though :)

gregpilling 16y ago
I feel exactly the same way. Should I find myself with an extra million in the bank, it would not change the feeling. There is a particular rush from making your ideas into reality.

adhipg 16y ago

Is this a resignation letter? Are AOL listening?

swah 16y ago

Anyone else avoided these post thinking it was about Torrent or something?

davidst 16y ago

For fools rush in where angels fear to tread. -- Alexander Pope I've come to believe that people who create startups must be, by definition, entirely unqualified for the job. If they were truly qualified they would have some idea of what they were getting themselves into and they would avoid it. Hence, only unqualified people embark on the adventure. There is, however, an up-side to being unqualified: The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible, and achieve it, generation after generation. -- Pearl S. Buck The young and foolish change the world.

mkramlich 16y ago

When Arrington's on as a writer, he's on.