4 ms·

Have lots of money to begin with. This is what I believe in from my experience in starting businesses. Much of the "stomach" to take risks and taking them mult

Have lots of money to begin with. This is what I believe in from my experience in starting businesses. Much of the "stomach" to take risks and taking them multiple times depends on how "lucky" you were to begin with. People around you will see risk if you don't have money or opportunity if you do, so expect their support accordingly.

koheripbal 4y ago
OP should list these defeatist attitudes as something to eliminate if you want to be successful.
- annyeonghada 4y ago
  If by defeatist attitude it is meant acknowledging the reality that some people have a head start or immense amount of luck than I'm not only a defeatist, I am a Christian during the 31th December 999, 11:59:59PM waiting for the apocalypse. I have a family relative, one of the most lazy people in the world, that some day found herself rich. How? Hard work? Business value? Education? No, she discovered she had a grandaunt and that she would be the heiress of three 300000EUR houses, plus half a million euro. The scene seemed out of a 90s love comedy, if only it weren't tragic.
  - eastbound 4y ago
    Starting with money is a bane. (I know, you’ll find the worst-of-the-worst example of poverty just to be right, like “What if you are in the middle of nothing and have unrelated skills”, but hear me). People who start with money have way-too-high costs and are incapable of optimizing the business. They run inefficient companies. So, if you start with money, you end up like WeWork. You may renew your money but nobody likes you.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    What's tragic about it?
- woojoo666 4y ago
  It's a trend that's well supported afaik [1]. Whether or not that trend manifests inside you as a defeatist attitude is a personal choice. But at the same time, whatever attitude you have isn't going to magically get rid of whatever disadvantages you were born into, so simply dismissing it a defeatist attitude is counterproductive. The danger is ignoring the tendency of egocentric bias in these articles[2]. Successful people assume that their values and ethics are what led them to success, when that may not be true. Though that then bears the question: who do we listen to for advice on success? Rich people? Scientific studies [3]? A thread I read on a previous hackernews post (coincidentally about Paul Graham, another founder of ycombinator) perhaps puts these ideas in better words than I [4] [1]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/00346543075003417 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/003465430750034... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I [3]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2332858419857706 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23328584198577... [4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27682107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27682107
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > whatever attitude you have isn't going to magically get rid of whatever disadvantages you were born into Yes, it is. I see it all the time. Scott Adams wrote a book about it entitled "Loser Think". BTW, everybody is born with disadvantages. But everyone also has advantages. Like being born in the US (instead of, say, Venezuela) is a big advantage.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

koheripbal 4y ago

OP should list these defeatist attitudes as something to eliminate if you want to be successful.

annyeonghada 4y ago
If by defeatist attitude it is meant acknowledging the reality that some people have a head start or immense amount of luck than I'm not only a defeatist, I am a Christian during the 31th December 999, 11:59:59PM waiting for the apocalypse. I have a family relative, one of the most lazy people in the world, that some day found herself rich. How? Hard work? Business value? Education? No, she discovered she had a grandaunt and that she would be the heiress of three 300000EUR houses, plus half a million euro. The scene seemed out of a 90s love comedy, if only it weren't tragic.
- eastbound 4y ago
  Starting with money is a bane. (I know, you’ll find the worst-of-the-worst example of poverty just to be right, like “What if you are in the middle of nothing and have unrelated skills”, but hear me). People who start with money have way-too-high costs and are incapable of optimizing the business. They run inefficient companies. So, if you start with money, you end up like WeWork. You may renew your money but nobody likes you.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  What's tragic about it?
woojoo666 4y ago
It's a trend that's well supported afaik [1]. Whether or not that trend manifests inside you as a defeatist attitude is a personal choice. But at the same time, whatever attitude you have isn't going to magically get rid of whatever disadvantages you were born into, so simply dismissing it a defeatist attitude is counterproductive. The danger is ignoring the tendency of egocentric bias in these articles[2]. Successful people assume that their values and ethics are what led them to success, when that may not be true. Though that then bears the question: who do we listen to for advice on success? Rich people? Scientific studies [3]? A thread I read on a previous hackernews post (coincidentally about Paul Graham, another founder of ycombinator) perhaps puts these ideas in better words than I [4] [1]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/00346543075003417 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.3102/003465430750034... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I [3]: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2332858419857706 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23328584198577... [4]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27682107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27682107
- WalterBright 4y ago
  > whatever attitude you have isn't going to magically get rid of whatever disadvantages you were born into Yes, it is. I see it all the time. Scott Adams wrote a book about it entitled "Loser Think". BTW, everybody is born with disadvantages. But everyone also has advantages. Like being born in the US (instead of, say, Venezuela) is a big advantage.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]