4 ms·

Yeah that's a great point. I think we should make it a lot less risky to start businesses. You shouldn't have to risk give up earning years or career building y

Yeah that's a great point. I think we should make it a lot less risky to start businesses. You shouldn't have to risk give up earning years or career building years, to say nothing of the financial burden of raising money (or competing with people who are able to raise money while you have to bootstrap instead). I think we should do this both generally, but also specifically for women, people of color, and other groups who are underrepresented in the universe of small business owners. Overall I think it would actually be really cool if we could get to where we think we are, where I can essentially pick from a menu of career options based on a risk/reward profile (OK not literally a menu but, yeah). But we're pretty far away from that right now; very few people are making these decisions based on that kind of calculus.

fastball 6y ago
I agree that we should encourage everyone to be an entrepreneur. I disagree that the right way to approach it is by focusing on underserved groups. The right way to approach it is to make it easy for anyone to start a business. The unfortunate reality is that you will never be able to pick from a menu of all possible career options because you (whoever you are) are not cut out for all possible careers. There are many people in the world who are better suited to doing job X, even if you think you'd like to do job X more.
- camgunz 6y ago
  > I disagree that the right way to approach [encouraging entrepreneurship] is by focusing on underserved groups. The right way to approach it is to make it easy for anyone to start a business. The numbers are real bad though [1] [2] [3]. White people own 80% of small businesses, and men own 64%. In 2012 (admittedly old but, the Census site is very bad) white men owned 2,933,198 firms with employees on the payroll. Everyone else owned 356,816 firms. Those same white men's firms had sales receipts of $8,221,010,815. Other firms had $88,657,443. That's nuts. Even more so when you consider white men are only ~33% of Americans. My guess is that COVID-19 makes this even worse, but who knows really. > The unfortunate reality is that you will never be able to pick from a menu of all possible career options because you (whoever you are) are not cut out for all possible careers. There are many people in the world who are better suited to doing job X, even if you think you'd like to do job X more. I 100% agree but, I wouldn't say it's unfortunate. I just think people should get equal pay for equal work, and CEOs aren't 270x more valuable than average workers. Maybe it's 5x, maybe even 10x, but not 270x. And that's salary difference, we're not even factoring in lifetime earnings. [1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/23/the-financial-risk-to-u-s-business-owners-posed-by-covid-19-outbreak-varies-by-demographic-group/ft_2020-04-23_smallbusinessowners_01a/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/23/the-financi... [2]: http://www.experian.com/whitepapers/BOLStudy_Experian.pdf http://www.experian.com/whitepapers/BOLStudy_Experian.pdf [3]: https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?tid=SBOCS2012.SB1200CSA01&hidePreview=true https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?tid=SBOCS2012.SB1200CSA...
  - fastball 6y ago
    > white people own 80% of small businesses But white people are 73% of the US population. Obviously it'd be nice if everything was proportional, but all things considered (how recently black people got fully equal rights, for example), I think 7% over-representation is pretty damn good, not "real bad", and the trend is heading in the right direction. Seems like a gap that is very doable to close with purely "encourage everyone to start a business" policies, and egalitarian policies like those should be the preference when possible. With respect to men vs. women, I think a similar argument should be made. Women were < 30% of the workforce ~70 years ago, and still haven't even made it to 50%. Given the importance and biological realities around childbirth, I'm not sure women ever will be 50% (until we grow babies ex-vivo, that is). But as long as trends are positive, it is better not to use regulation as an attempt to overcompensate for perceived inequalities, as that can (and does) frequently backfire. Even if the number of women-led businesses is not going up, you can't just assume this is because women are actively being prevented/discouraged from doing so, you need to demonstrate that. Because an alternate explanation is that women (for whatever reason, maybe they like healthy work/life balances?) are choosing, very much of their own free will and without undue pressure from society, to not start businesses at a higher rate than men. > Maybe it's 5x, maybe even 10x, but not 270x This doesn't seem to be a particularly rational stance. If you don't have a good reason behind why it should be one multiple and not another, I don't think its your place to decide that multiple. This sounds a lot like the oft-repeated "nobody should be a billionaire". Um, why not? A billion dollars is an arbitrary amount of value. For example, a billion Zimbabwean dollars in 2008 wouldn't buy a coke[1]. Obviously in the case of USD right now, $1B is a lot of value. But if I make some useful piece of software (entirely on my own) that I sell to 100,000,000 people for $10 each, why should I not be a billionaire? Again, if you don't have a rational (rather than emotional) underlying argument for why X amount of value is "too much", it is not your place to decide that number. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe
    - camgunz 6y ago
      The 80/64 numbers are pretty misleading because they count sole proprietorships. I'd reemphasize: > 2,933,198 firms with employees on the payroll. Everyone else owned 356,816 firms. Those same white men's firms had sales receipts of $8,221,010,815. Other firms had $88,657,443. That's nuts. Even more so when you consider white men are only ~33% of Americans. My guess is that COVID-19 makes this even worse, but who knows really. White people aren't 89% (or 99%, in the case of sales) of the population. And at numbers this big, 7% is 210,000 firms. That's not nothing. > This doesn't seem to be a particularly rational stance. If you don't have a good reason behind why it should be one multiple and not another, I don't think its your place to decide that multiple. CEO pay isn't meritocratic and has all kinds of ills besides [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. I think generally the argument here is something like, "well, CEOs/CTOs/etc. just provide a lot more value than your average white collar worker", but the studies don't show that. Further, data show that (again) high relative CEO pay is bad for the company and bad for society in general. I'd be remiss if I didn't also say that while we're spending a lot of time on high incomes here, high levels of wealth are far, far worse. We need policies to reign in disproportionate salaries certainly, but we also need a wealth tax. I could cite some more stuff but, frankly the best thing to do here is read Capital by Piketty. > This sounds a lot like the oft-repeated "nobody should be a billionaire". Um, why not? Because people are dying from poverty; they're losing their cars and houses; their kids aren't going to college; their parents aren't getting medicine they need to stay healthy and live; etc. etc. Meanwhile Jeff Bezos could give every person in the US restaurant industry $1,000/mo for a year and still have hundreds of millions of dollars. You might dismiss that as emotional, but I think these are exactly the reasons people have money: to provide shelter for themselves and their loved ones, to get medicine, to get education. That's not emotional stuff, that's like, what are the basic needs of humanity stuff. [1]: https://www.epi.org/publication/reining-in-ceo-compensation-and-curbing-the-rise-of-inequality/ https://www.epi.org/publication/reining-in-ceo-compensation-... [2]: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steve_Werner2/publication/247569983_How_Much_Does_Performance_Matter_A_Meta-analysis_of_CEO_Pay_Studies/links/56c4febd08ae736e70471099.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steve_Werner2/publicati... [3]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/ceo-pay-and-performance-dont-match-up-1526299200 https://www.wsj.com/articles/ceo-pay-and-performance-dont-ma... [4]: https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/46078405/The_effects_of_CEO_pay_structure_on_corp20160530-30531-o5tgs0.pdf?1464639773=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DThe_Effects_of_CEO_Pay_Structure_on_Corp.pdf&Expires=1607395629&Signature=Q65DJwk~56tVxJ0kdou0bLNNC93C7t3ZHHtVSDSrCGKj9X5kAz0bXLNJ~94mJIhCdvQyltePoUKcJQ5gFZTynsoV6Uc95nHAV~TvQC41QGALcS1NZD27-iwolMRaZK-lneEPfn-BBLjc6MBGmMIXSHPdlTTqqU3plYfphhJ2pilkaSIY~9OL3BXN20a7SSQ4~6~~Kc6BBl~OK2Zr3SUy4y3MGqMA2PAPCm8gtIRjoAaU0z9E7pw~PP81PRD777iaq52ZwVr2v2Fn7vyWJHmp3LNMwnC6IYXj3LmPA02jal8My3z3obUFdf6kc5SBBh7PURnVKDd~GHRLH7LH4pVjXw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/46078405/The_effects_o... [5]: https://hbr.org/1990/05/ceo-incentives-its-not-how-much-you-pay-but-how https://hbr.org/1990/05/ceo-incentives-its-not-how-much-you-...

fastball 6y ago

I agree that we should encourage everyone to be an entrepreneur. I disagree that the right way to approach it is by focusing on underserved groups. The right way to approach it is to make it easy for anyone to start a business. The unfortunate reality is that you will never be able to pick from a menu of all possible career options because you (whoever you are) are not cut out for all possible careers. There are many people in the world who are better suited to doing job X, even if you think you'd like to do job X more.

camgunz 6y ago
> I disagree that the right way to approach [encouraging entrepreneurship] is by focusing on underserved groups. The right way to approach it is to make it easy for anyone to start a business. The numbers are real bad though [1] [2] [3]. White people own 80% of small businesses, and men own 64%. In 2012 (admittedly old but, the Census site is very bad) white men owned 2,933,198 firms with employees on the payroll. Everyone else owned 356,816 firms. Those same white men's firms had sales receipts of $8,221,010,815. Other firms had $88,657,443. That's nuts. Even more so when you consider white men are only ~33% of Americans. My guess is that COVID-19 makes this even worse, but who knows really. > The unfortunate reality is that you will never be able to pick from a menu of all possible career options because you (whoever you are) are not cut out for all possible careers. There are many people in the world who are better suited to doing job X, even if you think you'd like to do job X more. I 100% agree but, I wouldn't say it's unfortunate. I just think people should get equal pay for equal work, and CEOs aren't 270x more valuable than average workers. Maybe it's 5x, maybe even 10x, but not 270x. And that's salary difference, we're not even factoring in lifetime earnings. [1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/23/the-financial-risk-to-u-s-business-owners-posed-by-covid-19-outbreak-varies-by-demographic-group/ft_2020-04-23_smallbusinessowners_01a/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/23/the-financi... [2]: http://www.experian.com/whitepapers/BOLStudy_Experian.pdf http://www.experian.com/whitepapers/BOLStudy_Experian.pdf [3]: https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?tid=SBOCS2012.SB1200CSA01&hidePreview=true https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?tid=SBOCS2012.SB1200CSA...
- fastball 6y ago
  > white people own 80% of small businesses But white people are 73% of the US population. Obviously it'd be nice if everything was proportional, but all things considered (how recently black people got fully equal rights, for example), I think 7% over-representation is pretty damn good, not "real bad", and the trend is heading in the right direction. Seems like a gap that is very doable to close with purely "encourage everyone to start a business" policies, and egalitarian policies like those should be the preference when possible. With respect to men vs. women, I think a similar argument should be made. Women were < 30% of the workforce ~70 years ago, and still haven't even made it to 50%. Given the importance and biological realities around childbirth, I'm not sure women ever will be 50% (until we grow babies ex-vivo, that is). But as long as trends are positive, it is better not to use regulation as an attempt to overcompensate for perceived inequalities, as that can (and does) frequently backfire. Even if the number of women-led businesses is not going up, you can't just assume this is because women are actively being prevented/discouraged from doing so, you need to demonstrate that. Because an alternate explanation is that women (for whatever reason, maybe they like healthy work/life balances?) are choosing, very much of their own free will and without undue pressure from society, to not start businesses at a higher rate than men. > Maybe it's 5x, maybe even 10x, but not 270x This doesn't seem to be a particularly rational stance. If you don't have a good reason behind why it should be one multiple and not another, I don't think its your place to decide that multiple. This sounds a lot like the oft-repeated "nobody should be a billionaire". Um, why not? A billion dollars is an arbitrary amount of value. For example, a billion Zimbabwean dollars in 2008 wouldn't buy a coke[1]. Obviously in the case of USD right now, $1B is a lot of value. But if I make some useful piece of software (entirely on my own) that I sell to 100,000,000 people for $10 each, why should I not be a billionaire? Again, if you don't have a rational (rather than emotional) underlying argument for why X amount of value is "too much", it is not your place to decide that number. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation_in_Zimbabwe
  - camgunz 6y ago
    The 80/64 numbers are pretty misleading because they count sole proprietorships. I'd reemphasize: > 2,933,198 firms with employees on the payroll. Everyone else owned 356,816 firms. Those same white men's firms had sales receipts of $8,221,010,815. Other firms had $88,657,443. That's nuts. Even more so when you consider white men are only ~33% of Americans. My guess is that COVID-19 makes this even worse, but who knows really. White people aren't 89% (or 99%, in the case of sales) of the population. And at numbers this big, 7% is 210,000 firms. That's not nothing. > This doesn't seem to be a particularly rational stance. If you don't have a good reason behind why it should be one multiple and not another, I don't think its your place to decide that multiple. CEO pay isn't meritocratic and has all kinds of ills besides [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. I think generally the argument here is something like, "well, CEOs/CTOs/etc. just provide a lot more value than your average white collar worker", but the studies don't show that. Further, data show that (again) high relative CEO pay is bad for the company and bad for society in general. I'd be remiss if I didn't also say that while we're spending a lot of time on high incomes here, high levels of wealth are far, far worse. We need policies to reign in disproportionate salaries certainly, but we also need a wealth tax. I could cite some more stuff but, frankly the best thing to do here is read Capital by Piketty. > This sounds a lot like the oft-repeated "nobody should be a billionaire". Um, why not? Because people are dying from poverty; they're losing their cars and houses; their kids aren't going to college; their parents aren't getting medicine they need to stay healthy and live; etc. etc. Meanwhile Jeff Bezos could give every person in the US restaurant industry $1,000/mo for a year and still have hundreds of millions of dollars. You might dismiss that as emotional, but I think these are exactly the reasons people have money: to provide shelter for themselves and their loved ones, to get medicine, to get education. That's not emotional stuff, that's like, what are the basic needs of humanity stuff. [1]: https://www.epi.org/publication/reining-in-ceo-compensation-and-curbing-the-rise-of-inequality/ https://www.epi.org/publication/reining-in-ceo-compensation-... [2]: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steve_Werner2/publication/247569983_How_Much_Does_Performance_Matter_A_Meta-analysis_of_CEO_Pay_Studies/links/56c4febd08ae736e70471099.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Steve_Werner2/publicati... [3]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/ceo-pay-and-performance-dont-match-up-1526299200 https://www.wsj.com/articles/ceo-pay-and-performance-dont-ma... [4]: https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/46078405/The_effects_of_CEO_pay_structure_on_corp20160530-30531-o5tgs0.pdf?1464639773=&response-content-disposition=inline%3B+filename%3DThe_Effects_of_CEO_Pay_Structure_on_Corp.pdf&Expires=1607395629&Signature=Q65DJwk~56tVxJ0kdou0bLNNC93C7t3ZHHtVSDSrCGKj9X5kAz0bXLNJ~94mJIhCdvQyltePoUKcJQ5gFZTynsoV6Uc95nHAV~TvQC41QGALcS1NZD27-iwolMRaZK-lneEPfn-BBLjc6MBGmMIXSHPdlTTqqU3plYfphhJ2pilkaSIY~9OL3BXN20a7SSQ4~6~~Kc6BBl~OK2Zr3SUy4y3MGqMA2PAPCm8gtIRjoAaU0z9E7pw~PP81PRD777iaq52ZwVr2v2Fn7vyWJHmp3LNMwnC6IYXj3LmPA02jal8My3z3obUFdf6kc5SBBh7PURnVKDd~GHRLH7LH4pVjXw__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.net/46078405/The_effects_o... [5]: https://hbr.org/1990/05/ceo-incentives-its-not-how-much-you-pay-but-how https://hbr.org/1990/05/ceo-incentives-its-not-how-much-you-...