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I absolutely agree. And it's all well and good talking about startups creating jobs, but really, what YC startups have created any meaningful number of jobs (a

I absolutely agree. And it's all well and good talking about startups creating jobs, but really, what YC startups have created any meaningful number of jobs (aside from highly paid developers (Dropbox, Heroku) or sales staff (Airbnb)? I'm not taking away from their success in any way, I just think we need to recognise that there's a fundamental problem on the horizon. I suspect the solution lies in fewer people working and contributing a greater proportion of their income. Obviously that's unpalatable to everybody.

zerostar07 15y ago
Do you remember that article from Mark Andreesen that "Software is eating everything"? It's a reality in the West that is often neglected and may lead to major changes in the (industrial-age) model of employment. There are other sectors with similar problems: Green energy, where people assume more jobs will be created although its obvious that it actually requires less human effort.
- marshallp 15y ago
  it's beyond the west, china for example has a worse problem, with many 20 million factory jobs being automated out over the past decade
thwarted 15y ago
I absolutely agree. And it's all well and good talking about startups creating jobs, but really, what YC startups have created any meaningful number of jobs What's a meaningful number of jobs? Creating jobs is only worth doing if it creates 10 jobs? 100 jobs? 1000 jobs? 10,000 jobs? None of these jobs can be "created" overnight, it requires years of building a company to get to the point where you can employ 10,000 people, much less employ an additional 10,000 people. The US civilian labor force is 154.2 million[1]. At 9% unemployment (13,878,000 of the total labor force), 10,000 jobs reduces the number of unemployed people by 7/100ths of a percent, so even that seems like it's not good enough. The point being that every little bit helps, and we're going to have an easier time getting people employed in handfuls than trying to get massive companies (of which there are fewer, over all) employing an additional 10,000 or 100,000 people -- nevermind that an economy that has a large number of smaller employers is going to be stronger and more resilient than a small number of massive employers. A business that employs 4 people is better than that business not existing at all. [1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=employable+united+states http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=employable+united+state...
ippisl 15y ago
It's true that new companies create less jobs than they used to. Previously they used to create 7.5 jobs/company, today only 4.5[1]. that means 2.3 million jobs instead of 3 million. [1]http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/starting-smaller-staying-smaller-americas-slow-leak-in-job-creation.aspx http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/starting-smaller...

zerostar07 15y ago

Do you remember that article from Mark Andreesen that "Software is eating everything"? It's a reality in the West that is often neglected and may lead to major changes in the (industrial-age) model of employment. There are other sectors with similar problems: Green energy, where people assume more jobs will be created although its obvious that it actually requires less human effort.

marshallp 15y ago
it's beyond the west, china for example has a worse problem, with many 20 million factory jobs being automated out over the past decade

thwarted 15y ago

I absolutely agree. And it's all well and good talking about startups creating jobs, but really, what YC startups have created any meaningful number of jobs What's a meaningful number of jobs? Creating jobs is only worth doing if it creates 10 jobs? 100 jobs? 1000 jobs? 10,000 jobs? None of these jobs can be "created" overnight, it requires years of building a company to get to the point where you can employ 10,000 people, much less employ an additional 10,000 people. The US civilian labor force is 154.2 million[1]. At 9% unemployment (13,878,000 of the total labor force), 10,000 jobs reduces the number of unemployed people by 7/100ths of a percent, so even that seems like it's not good enough. The point being that every little bit helps, and we're going to have an easier time getting people employed in handfuls than trying to get massive companies (of which there are fewer, over all) employing an additional 10,000 or 100,000 people -- nevermind that an economy that has a large number of smaller employers is going to be stronger and more resilient than a small number of massive employers. A business that employs 4 people is better than that business not existing at all. [1] http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=employable+united+states http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=employable+united+state...

ippisl 15y ago

It's true that new companies create less jobs than they used to. Previously they used to create 7.5 jobs/company, today only 4.5[1]. that means 2.3 million jobs instead of 3 million. [1]http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/starting-smaller-staying-smaller-americas-slow-leak-in-job-creation.aspx http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/starting-smaller...