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A poor person betting everything on their startup is definitely good for pg - it increases the pool of people whose work he can profit from. It's not that obvi

A poor person betting everything on their startup is definitely good for pg - it increases the pool of people whose work he can profit from. It's not that obvious if it's good for the poor person. I guess that everybody has their own risk aversion threshold.

AlexTWithBeard 7y ago
A poor person betting everything... a poor person usually doesn't have much, besides the time and dedication.
- duchenne 7y ago
  GP's point of view: A poor person can have a small safety net that separates him from absolute poverty and homelessness. If they start their own business, fail, and end up without enough money to pay for the rent, the consequences could be terrible. They also have a finite time to save enough for a descent retirement. Spending several years on a startup with a high fail rate can dramatically reduce the quality of their old days.
- malux85 7y ago
  There’s a big difference between poor and zero, and a poor person betting on a startup can hit zero really quick. At zero, you cannot pay rent and are likely to get evicted. Once evicted you are potentially NFA, which means you can’t get a bank card posted to you if you have problems with your card. How can you pay for food? Where can you use the bathroom? What about the electricity bill before you got evicted? The electricity bill that was late and now unpaid that’s ruining your credit score? Now you have bad credit and will find it harder getting a flat. The above sentences where not chronologically cohesive because there’s so much working against the poor and those at zero, and I’m on mobile, I couldn’t take an hour to type it all out. How on earth do you expect a poor person to do a startup, when they can barely feed themselves and keep a roof over their head?
  - huffmsa 7y ago
    Same way my great-grandfather did it. He preferred the risks associated with going to America over the known outcome of staying in his little village.
    - watwut 7y ago
      Most of immigration happened during high risk dangerous and unstable times. Most immigrants were not bored of super safe and stable life where they came from. They were running away, because original place was dangerous.
      - huffmsa 7y ago
        So then you're comparing the know risks of war and famine to the unknown risks in the target country. Which for a lot of American history has been war and crop failure.
        lotsofpulp 7y ago
        Comparing your great grandfather’s situation to a poor person today doesn’t make sense to me. Their choices, consequences, and access to information are vastly different.
        huffmsa 7y ago
        There's less risk today. If your company fails, you're in debt, but you probably won't die in a ditch. So why not jump feet first into what you want to do? To quote the eminent Shia LeBouf "It's you're life, don't let your dreams be dreams. Just do it"
        crankylinuxuser 7y ago
        Its easy to say platitudes from rich people. When there's little/no social net when you fail, failure is disastrous. I'm diabetic. I'm nearly chained to a company with a decent medical plan, since our "wonderful" country has little to impetus to fix medicine. So failing means 'not able to go to the doctor and not afford my drugs'. Failure also means 'not affording rent'. Failure also means being unemployed, and no way to get unemployment. So where being a business owner means it could free my way out of poverty, the %success rate for me absolutely must be balanced with the failure rate and the ramifications aforementioned.
- watwut 7y ago
  Heathcare that was provided by employer before and house in low crime area, say.
- hatmatrix 7y ago
  There is opportunity cost (of a stable industry job) that the educated but poor person is foregoing.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Note that by not foregoing that opportunity cost the poor person can save up enough of a safety net for his children to take a risk. Generations are important. A poor person with a family is best not taking risks. However they can bring up enough of a safety net for their children.
ekianjo 7y ago
A poor person not betting on anything is bound to stay poor. Your point is?
- hef19898 7y ago
  Isn't that oversimplifying the whole social issue of why people are poor, stay poor or become poor?
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    Strawman. I was answering the previous point: betting is probably a reasonable choice when you have not much to begin with. I would not make a 2 lines comment to explain poverty as a whole.
    - brain5ide 7y ago
      No. Betting is a reasonable choice when you, like a VC can bet on a ton of options and still have cash left for immediate problems. All other times, betting is playing your luck and bound to fail.
      - hef19898 7y ago
        First, I don't want to read to much into the OP regarding betting. Because there is something to it. Without risks no rewards. Yet what constitutes a risk and a reward differ significantly based on your resources. That being said, risking some of your resources, money, time, whatever, to get out of poverty is reasonable. Betting on a start-up might not be. Simply because if it goes wrong instead of rewards there might be debt and even worse poverty.
        Retra 7y ago
        >Without risks no rewards. This is a fallacy. The vast majority of people are rewarded for minimizing risk, not taking it. People justify extra risk for disproportionate reward, not reward in general. You have to take risks if you want relatively unbounded returns. Getting out of poverty does not require that at all.
bubblewrap 7y ago
Sure, PG is obviously only driven by his desire to exploit poor people by telling them lies about startups. How could it be any other way. He is rich, so that's what he does, right? Exploiting poor people, that's what rich people do to fill their days.
mlthoughts2018 7y ago
It is probably not actually good for PG, because the majority of such people will fail and end up destitute, casting bad publicity (rightly or wrongly, doesn’t matter) on whatever start-up churner generated that outcome. Additionally, founders who already come from wealth or have political connections, etc., are probably much more likely to succees in the financial senses that PG wants. The only limited sense in which it’s good for PG is if there is a lottery winner he can claim credit for, a rags-to-riches story to whip up blind support for some ludicrous tech millionaire idealism.
- pnongrata 7y ago
  Not many people care about startup failures, except high profile ones.
  - mlthoughts2018 7y ago
    Journalists looking to (justifiably or unjustifiably) undermine start-up incubators or VC firms easily could care. You could just as lazily & dismissively say nobody cares about failed taxi drivers, and yet there it is on the front page of the most popular Western newspaper in the world. If there’s an angle to make it a story, people will care. The angle to make it a story about how start-up programs are basically scams exploiting lottery biases of people not in a life position to sustain that risk is very easy, straightforward & compelling to a wide audience. And hence it’s probably bad for PG & others if people without safety nets are going bust on failed start-ups.

AlexTWithBeard 7y ago

A poor person betting everything... a poor person usually doesn't have much, besides the time and dedication.

duchenne 7y ago
GP's point of view: A poor person can have a small safety net that separates him from absolute poverty and homelessness. If they start their own business, fail, and end up without enough money to pay for the rent, the consequences could be terrible. They also have a finite time to save enough for a descent retirement. Spending several years on a startup with a high fail rate can dramatically reduce the quality of their old days.
malux85 7y ago
There’s a big difference between poor and zero, and a poor person betting on a startup can hit zero really quick. At zero, you cannot pay rent and are likely to get evicted. Once evicted you are potentially NFA, which means you can’t get a bank card posted to you if you have problems with your card. How can you pay for food? Where can you use the bathroom? What about the electricity bill before you got evicted? The electricity bill that was late and now unpaid that’s ruining your credit score? Now you have bad credit and will find it harder getting a flat. The above sentences where not chronologically cohesive because there’s so much working against the poor and those at zero, and I’m on mobile, I couldn’t take an hour to type it all out. How on earth do you expect a poor person to do a startup, when they can barely feed themselves and keep a roof over their head?
- huffmsa 7y ago
  Same way my great-grandfather did it. He preferred the risks associated with going to America over the known outcome of staying in his little village.
  - watwut 7y ago
    Most of immigration happened during high risk dangerous and unstable times. Most immigrants were not bored of super safe and stable life where they came from. They were running away, because original place was dangerous.
    - huffmsa 7y ago
      So then you're comparing the know risks of war and famine to the unknown risks in the target country. Which for a lot of American history has been war and crop failure.
      - lotsofpulp 7y ago
        Comparing your great grandfather’s situation to a poor person today doesn’t make sense to me. Their choices, consequences, and access to information are vastly different.
        huffmsa 7y ago
        There's less risk today. If your company fails, you're in debt, but you probably won't die in a ditch. So why not jump feet first into what you want to do? To quote the eminent Shia LeBouf "It's you're life, don't let your dreams be dreams. Just do it"
        crankylinuxuser 7y ago
        Its easy to say platitudes from rich people. When there's little/no social net when you fail, failure is disastrous. I'm diabetic. I'm nearly chained to a company with a decent medical plan, since our "wonderful" country has little to impetus to fix medicine. So failing means 'not able to go to the doctor and not afford my drugs'. Failure also means 'not affording rent'. Failure also means being unemployed, and no way to get unemployment. So where being a business owner means it could free my way out of poverty, the %success rate for me absolutely must be balanced with the failure rate and the ramifications aforementioned.
watwut 7y ago
Heathcare that was provided by employer before and house in low crime area, say.
hatmatrix 7y ago
There is opportunity cost (of a stable industry job) that the educated but poor person is foregoing.
- bluGill 7y ago
  Note that by not foregoing that opportunity cost the poor person can save up enough of a safety net for his children to take a risk. Generations are important. A poor person with a family is best not taking risks. However they can bring up enough of a safety net for their children.

ekianjo 7y ago

A poor person not betting on anything is bound to stay poor. Your point is?

hef19898 7y ago
Isn't that oversimplifying the whole social issue of why people are poor, stay poor or become poor?
- ekianjo 7y ago
  Strawman. I was answering the previous point: betting is probably a reasonable choice when you have not much to begin with. I would not make a 2 lines comment to explain poverty as a whole.
  - brain5ide 7y ago
    No. Betting is a reasonable choice when you, like a VC can bet on a ton of options and still have cash left for immediate problems. All other times, betting is playing your luck and bound to fail.
    - hef19898 7y ago
      First, I don't want to read to much into the OP regarding betting. Because there is something to it. Without risks no rewards. Yet what constitutes a risk and a reward differ significantly based on your resources. That being said, risking some of your resources, money, time, whatever, to get out of poverty is reasonable. Betting on a start-up might not be. Simply because if it goes wrong instead of rewards there might be debt and even worse poverty.
      - Retra 7y ago
        >Without risks no rewards. This is a fallacy. The vast majority of people are rewarded for minimizing risk, not taking it. People justify extra risk for disproportionate reward, not reward in general. You have to take risks if you want relatively unbounded returns. Getting out of poverty does not require that at all.

bubblewrap 7y ago

Sure, PG is obviously only driven by his desire to exploit poor people by telling them lies about startups. How could it be any other way. He is rich, so that's what he does, right? Exploiting poor people, that's what rich people do to fill their days.

mlthoughts2018 7y ago

It is probably not actually good for PG, because the majority of such people will fail and end up destitute, casting bad publicity (rightly or wrongly, doesn’t matter) on whatever start-up churner generated that outcome. Additionally, founders who already come from wealth or have political connections, etc., are probably much more likely to succees in the financial senses that PG wants. The only limited sense in which it’s good for PG is if there is a lottery winner he can claim credit for, a rags-to-riches story to whip up blind support for some ludicrous tech millionaire idealism.

pnongrata 7y ago
Not many people care about startup failures, except high profile ones.
- mlthoughts2018 7y ago
  Journalists looking to (justifiably or unjustifiably) undermine start-up incubators or VC firms easily could care. You could just as lazily & dismissively say nobody cares about failed taxi drivers, and yet there it is on the front page of the most popular Western newspaper in the world. If there’s an angle to make it a story, people will care. The angle to make it a story about how start-up programs are basically scams exploiting lottery biases of people not in a life position to sustain that risk is very easy, straightforward & compelling to a wide audience. And hence it’s probably bad for PG & others if people without safety nets are going bust on failed start-ups.