9 ms·

> When you have no money, you have a special kind of drive. It's the drive that says "look, working a regular job for the next 40+ years is going to drain your

by cheez 7y ago

> When you have no money, you have a special kind of drive. It's the drive that says "look, working a regular job for the next 40+ years is going to drain your soul -- either bust your ass and figure out how to do what you want, or suffer for the rest of your life". The alternative is so awful that you'll do anything to avoid it. Ironically, what you fail to see is that this line of thought is only possible under two circumstances: rock bottom, or born to money. An unemployed 30 year old in between would give their right arm to have a job for 40 years.

nickjj 7y ago
> Ironically, what you fail to see is that this line of thought is only possible under two circumstances: rock bottom, or born to money. An unemployed 30 year old in between would give their right arm to have a job for 40 years. I wasn't born into money and I never hit rock bottom. I worked a few part time non-technical jobs as a teenager before I really got into computers and quickly realized that there's a 0% chance I would be able to exist in a world where I was reporting to someone every day for 40+ years in hopes they keep me employed. That lifestyle just isn't for me. I was lucky enough to find computers in my late teens and programming is something I very much love doing so I made a freelance career out of it for the last ~20 years and still do it today (because I like it). That drive to work for yourself is not tied into having a safety net. It's a mindset and maybe genetic (I have no idea). Most of my related family works for someone else though, so it's not like I'm coming from 10 generations of entrepreneurs here. I think it's more of a mindset because I don't do this for the money. If we lived in a world where you could somehow survive comfortably with no income I would still try to make my own business doing whatever I really enjoyed doing. The primary output of what I do to me isn't money, it's personal enjoyment and the satisfaction of helping others. > An unemployed 30 year old in between would give their right arm to have a job for 40 years. And this is where the problem lies. Unless you're super skilled working at a company that is massive and will never run out of funds then there's practically a 0% chance you'll have a guaranteed steady job for 40 years. You might get a few years or a decade even in some places but it's never guaranteed. The only thing that's mostly guaranteed is you will get paid your salary for a span of a single pay check duration or perhaps any duration you pre-define in a contract. After that, you're hoping that the business you work at stays in business and you are doing your job well enough not to get laid off.
- taneq 7y ago
  > Unless you're super skilled working at a company that is massive and will never run out of funds then there's practically a 0% chance you'll have a guaranteed steady job for 40 years. I think this is a big factor. There are a lot of us whose parents lived in the "you get a permanent job with a company and then work with them til you retire" era, who saw their parents give their lives to a company and then saw that same company screw their parents over to save a few bucks. It makes it really hard to trust your employer later in life. I think for people like that, starting a company is an attempt at building a safety net.
- cheez 7y ago
  Please don't take my short response to think that I did not value your comment. It was obviously well thought out. > I was lucky enough to find computers in my late teens 25 years ago? You still don't get it... 25 years ago, how many people could afford to "find computers" in their late teens? "Coming from money" doesn't mean you are institutionally wealthy. It means that you have access to opportunities others don't and failure isn't even visible to you. When you have no idea of the consequences of failure, you are able to take risks. For me, I have personally (unfortunately) been involved with some bad people but were it not for my inability to understand what failure is, I would never have recovered and there would be a pretty unfortunate cycle starting with me. You have not dissuaded me from that perspective at all. Indeed, all you have said is "I was successful and didn't want to be a slave like the others in my family". But you never saw failure. You never wanted a safety net. Perhaps you used one and you didn't even know it. So what in your life would have made you afraid to take risks?
  - nickjj 7y ago
    > You still don't get it... 25 years ago, how many people could afford to "find computers" in their late teens? In the public high school I went to they had a computer program, so I had access to that which helped. There's also the public library too. Although in my case I was able to eventually get a computer at home but it took a lot of saving. Also in the mid / late 1990s computers started to come down a lot in price compared to the early 90s. But really, nowadays it's a totally different world so my specific situation doesn't matter. You can grab a decent laptop for $350ish. You could work a summer job to afford that while still going to high school, or a part time job for a few months. There's also an endless amount of free (or paid) tutorials on a ton of technical topics. > So what in your life would have made you afraid to take risks? I'm not smart enough to answer that question because I can't figure out what you're asking. But I will leave you with, of course having a base line of family security is helpful. For example if your parent(s) are employed and you are able to have food, clothes and electricity then you have an advantage over someone who lives on the street but the article made it seem like you need "family money, an inheritance, or a pedigree and connections that allow for access to financial stability" to run your own business. To me that's much more than the basics. When I read that, I read that as coming from a family where your parents probably make 350k+ year and there's 5+ million in a low risk trading account or something that can be liquified on demand. That's a totally different world from a family living paycheck to paycheck but can still save a little bit here and there. That type of family is more in tuned with how I was brought up. It was always a struggle with a lot of sacrifices, but it was never "bad bad".

by cheez 7y ago

nickjj 7y ago

> Ironically, what you fail to see is that this line of thought is only possible under two circumstances: rock bottom, or born to money. An unemployed 30 year old in between would give their right arm to have a job for 40 years. I wasn't born into money and I never hit rock bottom. I worked a few part time non-technical jobs as a teenager before I really got into computers and quickly realized that there's a 0% chance I would be able to exist in a world where I was reporting to someone every day for 40+ years in hopes they keep me employed. That lifestyle just isn't for me. I was lucky enough to find computers in my late teens and programming is something I very much love doing so I made a freelance career out of it for the last ~20 years and still do it today (because I like it). That drive to work for yourself is not tied into having a safety net. It's a mindset and maybe genetic (I have no idea). Most of my related family works for someone else though, so it's not like I'm coming from 10 generations of entrepreneurs here. I think it's more of a mindset because I don't do this for the money. If we lived in a world where you could somehow survive comfortably with no income I would still try to make my own business doing whatever I really enjoyed doing. The primary output of what I do to me isn't money, it's personal enjoyment and the satisfaction of helping others. > An unemployed 30 year old in between would give their right arm to have a job for 40 years. And this is where the problem lies. Unless you're super skilled working at a company that is massive and will never run out of funds then there's practically a 0% chance you'll have a guaranteed steady job for 40 years. You might get a few years or a decade even in some places but it's never guaranteed. The only thing that's mostly guaranteed is you will get paid your salary for a span of a single pay check duration or perhaps any duration you pre-define in a contract. After that, you're hoping that the business you work at stays in business and you are doing your job well enough not to get laid off.

taneq 7y ago
> Unless you're super skilled working at a company that is massive and will never run out of funds then there's practically a 0% chance you'll have a guaranteed steady job for 40 years. I think this is a big factor. There are a lot of us whose parents lived in the "you get a permanent job with a company and then work with them til you retire" era, who saw their parents give their lives to a company and then saw that same company screw their parents over to save a few bucks. It makes it really hard to trust your employer later in life. I think for people like that, starting a company is an attempt at building a safety net.
cheez 7y ago
Please don't take my short response to think that I did not value your comment. It was obviously well thought out. > I was lucky enough to find computers in my late teens 25 years ago? You still don't get it... 25 years ago, how many people could afford to "find computers" in their late teens? "Coming from money" doesn't mean you are institutionally wealthy. It means that you have access to opportunities others don't and failure isn't even visible to you. When you have no idea of the consequences of failure, you are able to take risks. For me, I have personally (unfortunately) been involved with some bad people but were it not for my inability to understand what failure is, I would never have recovered and there would be a pretty unfortunate cycle starting with me. You have not dissuaded me from that perspective at all. Indeed, all you have said is "I was successful and didn't want to be a slave like the others in my family". But you never saw failure. You never wanted a safety net. Perhaps you used one and you didn't even know it. So what in your life would have made you afraid to take risks?
- nickjj 7y ago
  > You still don't get it... 25 years ago, how many people could afford to "find computers" in their late teens? In the public high school I went to they had a computer program, so I had access to that which helped. There's also the public library too. Although in my case I was able to eventually get a computer at home but it took a lot of saving. Also in the mid / late 1990s computers started to come down a lot in price compared to the early 90s. But really, nowadays it's a totally different world so my specific situation doesn't matter. You can grab a decent laptop for $350ish. You could work a summer job to afford that while still going to high school, or a part time job for a few months. There's also an endless amount of free (or paid) tutorials on a ton of technical topics. > So what in your life would have made you afraid to take risks? I'm not smart enough to answer that question because I can't figure out what you're asking. But I will leave you with, of course having a base line of family security is helpful. For example if your parent(s) are employed and you are able to have food, clothes and electricity then you have an advantage over someone who lives on the street but the article made it seem like you need "family money, an inheritance, or a pedigree and connections that allow for access to financial stability" to run your own business. To me that's much more than the basics. When I read that, I read that as coming from a family where your parents probably make 350k+ year and there's 5+ million in a low risk trading account or something that can be liquified on demand. That's a totally different world from a family living paycheck to paycheck but can still save a little bit here and there. That type of family is more in tuned with how I was brought up. It was always a struggle with a lot of sacrifices, but it was never "bad bad".