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This goes both way: founders create start ups with the idea that being acquired is a valid exit strategy. It's hard to quantify but perhaps not that many start
by baby 6y ago
This goes both way: founders create start ups with the idea that being acquired is a valid exit strategy. It's hard to quantify but perhaps not that many start ups would have been founded if they didn't see as many valid options to exit, and a founder wouldn't have created the next big thing if his previous company didn't get acquired.
- dragontamer 6y ago> and a founder wouldn't have created the next big thing if his previous company didn't get acquired. Hershey (of Hershey's Chocolate) failed multiple times and went bankrupt each time before finally making his Chocolate company. Repeated failures are absolutely an option.
- asdff 6y agoAnecdotal stories of the survivors from 100 years ago when you could work a bottom of the barrel job for 1 week and cover a months living don't apply today. In order to insulate yourself from failure, you need wealth today to draw upon and cover your cost of living. Many americans don't have a spare $400 (1), they can't quit their job to tinker with a perennially failing side business without ending up risking living on the street. Many americans are trapped. 1. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/23/millions-of-americans-are-only-400-away-from-financial-hardship.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/23/millions-of-americans-are-on...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- dragontamer 6y agoHershey was pretty well connected. I'm pretty sure his family bankrolled a lot of his early ventures. This wasn't a "by his own bootstraps" story. But its absolutely a "try try again" story. Today, there are more "by their own bootstraps" stories. Steve Jobs was the adopted. His original father was a Syrian immigrant, for example. If we go back to the 1800s, the "Gilded Age", the oppression of the "robber barons" was obvious: they destroyed small companies before the invention of antitrust laws. Maybe we'd like more "by their own bootstrap" stories today, and I'd support implementing policies that make it more possible. (including a new antitrust review of today's companies, to see if they're bad for the economy, like the 1800s robber barons were). But lets not pretend that the 1800s were easier than they actually were.
- baby 6y agoThat sounds like a survivor bias story