6 ms·

I remember a conversation I had with my doctor once. She was talking about her son, and mused that she thought my disability had made me a much grittier and co

I remember a conversation I had with my doctor once. She was talking about her son, and mused that she thought my disability had made me a much grittier and conscientious person than most of my peers. That's a nice sentiment, but something I noticed when I eventually managed to graduate college was that there was no substitute for a good safety net and parental support. I watched dumbfounded as some of my classmates went on to found or join risky startups during the great recession. For me, failure would have been catastrophic. I'd have likely wound up sleeping under a bridge. I was amazed they were so fearless! Only, I later learned the reason they were so fearless is they knew their parents would step in and pay for their living expenses while they got back on their feet. TLDR: Some folks can swing for the fences, take outsized risks, and reap the rewards, because failure is always an option.

danielmarkbruce 3y ago
TLDR: money takes away the risk. When it's all upside, there is no risk, it's just a distribution of possible upsides.
- wing-_-nuts 3y ago
  Yep, and it's made me reconsider my conservative risk tolerance now that I'm finally financially independent. I'm not sure if I should 'swing for the fences' or 'take a knee and run out the clock'. Probably the latter. I'm not sure I'm hungry enough to put up with a startup in my 40's.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    according to statistics, many successful startups are by people in their 40s. ok, so if you are not hungry enough, that's fine, but i think being financially independent at 40 seems to be the best time to throw yourself into a startup. since you are already financially secure you don't have to overwork yourself, but you can take it a bit slower.
DoubleDerper 3y ago
Resilience: Stay strong when you're product launch isn't going well. Resilience: Stay strong when you're a working single mother struggling to pay rent and feed your kids. The techno-twitter teeth grinders would have you believe these are the same. They are not.
- wharvle 3y ago
  It's been observed that the homeless work harder just to get through an average day in more-or-less one piece than almost anyone with a job does (and hell, quite a few homeless do have jobs, in addition to the rest of what they deal with every day) So much for "lazy".
  - Spivak 3y ago
    Don't you know, lazy is when the value you produce is for yourself (survival or otherwise) instead of for them.
whartung 3y ago
Cue John Goodmans speech from "The Gambler" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2039393/quotes/?item=qt2347398&ref_=ext_shr_lnk https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2039393/quotes/?item=qt2347398&... (Warning, 4 letter words.)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Kye 3y ago
There's a good comment right here on HN that illustrates this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15659076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15659076 >> "Entrepreneurship is like one of those carnival games where you throw darts or something." >> "Middle class kids can afford one throw. Most miss. A few hit the target and get a small prize. A very few hit the center bullseye and get a bigger prize. Rags to riches! The American Dream lives on." >> "Rich kids can afford many throws. If they want to, they can try over and over and over again until they hit something and feel good about themselves. Some keep going until they hit the center bullseye, then they give speeches or write blog posts about "meritocracy" and the salutary effects of hard work." >> "Poor kids aren't visiting the carnival. They're the ones working it."
- pyrophane 3y ago
  The rich kids are also allowed to stand a lot closer to the board to throw.
  - SteveDR 3y ago
    That kind of defeats the point of the metaphor. At that point just say the system is rigged.
    - KittenInABox 3y ago
      It is rigged.
Domenic_S 3y ago
> For me, failure would have been catastrophic. Perhaps that's objectively true or maybe that's just your perspective (ie, what your level of resilience can handle) Like your classmates I joined a risky startup as employee 1 during the great recession, but unlike them I didn't have any backstop. Failure would have hurt but it wouldn't have been catastrophic - including rent and income-based college loan repayment my monthly nut was maybe $1k. When I was short on cash I took a job at nights doing phone tech support and later building websites for local businesses in my spare time. That isn't to say there weren't bumps (had my first run-in with the IRS -- and debt collectors) but to me there was always a way to make ends meet. Of course i owed some of that to being young and healthy without dependents, and the availability of $600/month apartments...
- wing-_-nuts 3y ago
  For myself, I think it was true. Other grads that 'failed' either took a job in the trades, or moved back in with parents. I had a disability, trades were off the table. It wasn't really safe for me to live under the same roof as my father, so living at home was out as well. Maybe 'living under a bridge' is hyperbolic. I'm sure I could have couch surfed, or at worst lived out of my truck, but my life back then revolved around how many weeks or months living expenses I had on hand.
sjducb 3y ago
I’ve set up my life so I have my own safety net (I made lots of money as an employee then saved it) Now at age ~40 I can afford to take risks like zuck and gates could when they were 20. I’m my own rich parents.
- fragmede 3y ago
  Except you're not 20. You don't have the same vitality as someone half your age, and you have relationships befitting a 40 year old and not a 20 year old so you still can't take the same risks. You're better capitalized and have deeper relationships than a 20 year old but you're not 20 years old able to. live off ramen and going out for a night of binge drinking with a fellow 20 year old who's going to go on to write Napster or Facebook. You won't wake up at 7 am after that night to roll into class at 9am where you'll network and build relationships where you can both drop out of college to start a new computer company. Where do you find fellow 40 year olds that can also take risks like you're both 20? I'm asking seriously because I'm also 40 and able to take a risk thanks to saving up some money, but imagining that I'm in the same boat as if I had this kind of backing when I was 20 is, I'm sorry, delusional.
  - pphysch 3y ago
    I think being "20 years old" in this context is more about "20 years ago". Where are the successful young 20yo founders in 2024? Recent golden-child SBF is 31 and ran a failed crypto scam! It would be unhealthy to misinterpret "youth" and "economic golden age" as the same thing. It is purely a coincidence that they may coincide for some generations.
  - antisthenes 3y ago
    > Where do you find fellow 40 year olds that can also take risks like you're both 20? I'm asking seriously because I'm also 40 and able to take a risk thanks to saving up some money On HN, apparently! You guys should get together and take some risks. Frankly, I'd much rather work with 40-year olds than 20-year olds. You may not get the same energy, but you're also much less likely to see your coworker throwing up in the office for half the day after that binge drinking night before.
em-bee 3y ago
no substitute for a good safety net and parental support you don't need parental support if you live in a country that actually has a decent social safety net. my parents were/are poor. once i moved out i never needed any money from them. however when i was a child we had to live from social services. and that was enough for us to have what we needed. that safety net gave me the same feeling of security that your friends got from their family. i was able to travel the world from money i earned myself. i took jobs and contracts wherever i wanted, because i knew, if all else fails i can go back to my home country. (edited to clarify) and even though many people complain how social support is not enough to live on, i have learned to live frugally, and i know that it would be enough for me. i know that, no matter how bad things could get, i'll never have to sleep under a bridge. as a society, that should be a minimum standard to aim for. seeing how cities in the US deal with homelessness leaves me dumbfounded. how can a society allow that to happen? it absolutely makes no sense to me. you really need to fix that.
- bodiekane 3y ago
  If that was true, then shouldn't Norway, Denmark and France be where all the exciting moonshot startups are founded? Instead, it's the US and China where essentially all innovation and major risk-taking is happening. Empirically, there must be some other critical variables your hypothesis is leaving out to explain what we see in reality.
  - em-bee 3y ago
    good point, and yes, there are other variables. a big one is risk tolerance. america was built by immigrants who all took a great risk getting there (with apologies to the native americans who were there first), so given equal conditions, a lot more people in america are willing to experiment. as one consequence americans also have more rolemodels of successful risk-takers. pretty much elsewhere in the world (at least western and asian countries that i have been to) taking a risk is considered something bad. the hackerspace in singapure has a sign that says: "this is singapures only kiasu free zone". kiasu means "extreme fear of losing", something prevalent in asian culture. european culture is better in that regard, but not much. so yeah, despite the benefits, most people in europe are afraid to try. also, as i mentioned, at least in germany people are complaining that the support is not enough. they didn't have the experience to see the system working like i did. i am willing to take a risk because i have already experienced what will happen when i fail. most people don't have that advantage. also, because of the lower risk tolerance it is much harder for startups in europe to get money. there are few investors and banks will only give you a credit if you have a proven business model. most rich people in europe are rich because their families had been rich for centuries. it's almost all old money.
cloverich 3y ago
That's how some people operate. But I've met plenty of business owners who literally put their life savings on the line for their business ventures. In short, they do everything in your tl;dr, excepting that failure is absolutely not an option for them. I think many of us like to believe having the cushion is the thing that would set us free, but I know many people who took risks with no cushion, and many more who have the cushion and take no risks, to question that.
AndrewKemendo 3y ago
Successful people come from bimodal distribution: 1. people who have good safety nets 2. people with absolutely traumatic backgrounds In both cases you “have nothing to lose” in the sense of, if your attempt fails, you’re back to where you started. For the middle-class person failing hard, but having no safety net means you do get a reduction and so most people who fall into this category are the most risk adverse. On the other hand, people who have been homeless or in excessively traumatic situations are basically like it’s never gonna be that bad again, and I survived it so I can handle basically anything. I fall into that second category, which is why I start so much stuff including building communities, literally everywhere I go
kderbyma 3y ago
So true.....I had to turn around and give up many times because the bills needed paying, my parents were just as broke as me, and no rich friends.... I know a ton of people who had their credit cards paid, student loans paid, housing paid, car payments, etc .... parents all gave them the hand outs and helped them and they were able to constantly have fun, socialize and party and meet more and more people....I have been forced to work for reality

danielmarkbruce 3y ago

TLDR: money takes away the risk. When it's all upside, there is no risk, it's just a distribution of possible upsides.

wing-_-nuts 3y ago
Yep, and it's made me reconsider my conservative risk tolerance now that I'm finally financially independent. I'm not sure if I should 'swing for the fences' or 'take a knee and run out the clock'. Probably the latter. I'm not sure I'm hungry enough to put up with a startup in my 40's.
- em-bee 3y ago
  according to statistics, many successful startups are by people in their 40s. ok, so if you are not hungry enough, that's fine, but i think being financially independent at 40 seems to be the best time to throw yourself into a startup. since you are already financially secure you don't have to overwork yourself, but you can take it a bit slower.

DoubleDerper 3y ago

Resilience: Stay strong when you're product launch isn't going well. Resilience: Stay strong when you're a working single mother struggling to pay rent and feed your kids. The techno-twitter teeth grinders would have you believe these are the same. They are not.

wharvle 3y ago
It's been observed that the homeless work harder just to get through an average day in more-or-less one piece than almost anyone with a job does (and hell, quite a few homeless do have jobs, in addition to the rest of what they deal with every day) So much for "lazy".
- Spivak 3y ago
  Don't you know, lazy is when the value you produce is for yourself (survival or otherwise) instead of for them.

whartung 3y ago

Cue John Goodmans speech from "The Gambler" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2039393/quotes/?item=qt2347398&ref_=ext_shr_lnk https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2039393/quotes/?item=qt2347398&... (Warning, 4 letter words.)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Kye 3y ago

There's a good comment right here on HN that illustrates this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15659076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15659076 >> "Entrepreneurship is like one of those carnival games where you throw darts or something." >> "Middle class kids can afford one throw. Most miss. A few hit the target and get a small prize. A very few hit the center bullseye and get a bigger prize. Rags to riches! The American Dream lives on." >> "Rich kids can afford many throws. If they want to, they can try over and over and over again until they hit something and feel good about themselves. Some keep going until they hit the center bullseye, then they give speeches or write blog posts about "meritocracy" and the salutary effects of hard work." >> "Poor kids aren't visiting the carnival. They're the ones working it."

pyrophane 3y ago
The rich kids are also allowed to stand a lot closer to the board to throw.
- SteveDR 3y ago
  That kind of defeats the point of the metaphor. At that point just say the system is rigged.
  - KittenInABox 3y ago
    It is rigged.

Domenic_S 3y ago

> For me, failure would have been catastrophic. Perhaps that's objectively true or maybe that's just your perspective (ie, what your level of resilience can handle) Like your classmates I joined a risky startup as employee 1 during the great recession, but unlike them I didn't have any backstop. Failure would have hurt but it wouldn't have been catastrophic - including rent and income-based college loan repayment my monthly nut was maybe $1k. When I was short on cash I took a job at nights doing phone tech support and later building websites for local businesses in my spare time. That isn't to say there weren't bumps (had my first run-in with the IRS -- and debt collectors) but to me there was always a way to make ends meet. Of course i owed some of that to being young and healthy without dependents, and the availability of $600/month apartments...

wing-_-nuts 3y ago
For myself, I think it was true. Other grads that 'failed' either took a job in the trades, or moved back in with parents. I had a disability, trades were off the table. It wasn't really safe for me to live under the same roof as my father, so living at home was out as well. Maybe 'living under a bridge' is hyperbolic. I'm sure I could have couch surfed, or at worst lived out of my truck, but my life back then revolved around how many weeks or months living expenses I had on hand.

sjducb 3y ago

I’ve set up my life so I have my own safety net (I made lots of money as an employee then saved it) Now at age ~40 I can afford to take risks like zuck and gates could when they were 20. I’m my own rich parents.

fragmede 3y ago
Except you're not 20. You don't have the same vitality as someone half your age, and you have relationships befitting a 40 year old and not a 20 year old so you still can't take the same risks. You're better capitalized and have deeper relationships than a 20 year old but you're not 20 years old able to. live off ramen and going out for a night of binge drinking with a fellow 20 year old who's going to go on to write Napster or Facebook. You won't wake up at 7 am after that night to roll into class at 9am where you'll network and build relationships where you can both drop out of college to start a new computer company. Where do you find fellow 40 year olds that can also take risks like you're both 20? I'm asking seriously because I'm also 40 and able to take a risk thanks to saving up some money, but imagining that I'm in the same boat as if I had this kind of backing when I was 20 is, I'm sorry, delusional.
- pphysch 3y ago
  I think being "20 years old" in this context is more about "20 years ago". Where are the successful young 20yo founders in 2024? Recent golden-child SBF is 31 and ran a failed crypto scam! It would be unhealthy to misinterpret "youth" and "economic golden age" as the same thing. It is purely a coincidence that they may coincide for some generations.
- antisthenes 3y ago
  > Where do you find fellow 40 year olds that can also take risks like you're both 20? I'm asking seriously because I'm also 40 and able to take a risk thanks to saving up some money On HN, apparently! You guys should get together and take some risks. Frankly, I'd much rather work with 40-year olds than 20-year olds. You may not get the same energy, but you're also much less likely to see your coworker throwing up in the office for half the day after that binge drinking night before.

em-bee 3y ago

no substitute for a good safety net and parental support you don't need parental support if you live in a country that actually has a decent social safety net. my parents were/are poor. once i moved out i never needed any money from them. however when i was a child we had to live from social services. and that was enough for us to have what we needed. that safety net gave me the same feeling of security that your friends got from their family. i was able to travel the world from money i earned myself. i took jobs and contracts wherever i wanted, because i knew, if all else fails i can go back to my home country. (edited to clarify) and even though many people complain how social support is not enough to live on, i have learned to live frugally, and i know that it would be enough for me. i know that, no matter how bad things could get, i'll never have to sleep under a bridge. as a society, that should be a minimum standard to aim for. seeing how cities in the US deal with homelessness leaves me dumbfounded. how can a society allow that to happen? it absolutely makes no sense to me. you really need to fix that.

bodiekane 3y ago
If that was true, then shouldn't Norway, Denmark and France be where all the exciting moonshot startups are founded? Instead, it's the US and China where essentially all innovation and major risk-taking is happening. Empirically, there must be some other critical variables your hypothesis is leaving out to explain what we see in reality.
- em-bee 3y ago
  good point, and yes, there are other variables. a big one is risk tolerance. america was built by immigrants who all took a great risk getting there (with apologies to the native americans who were there first), so given equal conditions, a lot more people in america are willing to experiment. as one consequence americans also have more rolemodels of successful risk-takers. pretty much elsewhere in the world (at least western and asian countries that i have been to) taking a risk is considered something bad. the hackerspace in singapure has a sign that says: "this is singapures only kiasu free zone". kiasu means "extreme fear of losing", something prevalent in asian culture. european culture is better in that regard, but not much. so yeah, despite the benefits, most people in europe are afraid to try. also, as i mentioned, at least in germany people are complaining that the support is not enough. they didn't have the experience to see the system working like i did. i am willing to take a risk because i have already experienced what will happen when i fail. most people don't have that advantage. also, because of the lower risk tolerance it is much harder for startups in europe to get money. there are few investors and banks will only give you a credit if you have a proven business model. most rich people in europe are rich because their families had been rich for centuries. it's almost all old money.

cloverich 3y ago

That's how some people operate. But I've met plenty of business owners who literally put their life savings on the line for their business ventures. In short, they do everything in your tl;dr, excepting that failure is absolutely not an option for them. I think many of us like to believe having the cushion is the thing that would set us free, but I know many people who took risks with no cushion, and many more who have the cushion and take no risks, to question that.

AndrewKemendo 3y ago

Successful people come from bimodal distribution: 1. people who have good safety nets 2. people with absolutely traumatic backgrounds In both cases you “have nothing to lose” in the sense of, if your attempt fails, you’re back to where you started. For the middle-class person failing hard, but having no safety net means you do get a reduction and so most people who fall into this category are the most risk adverse. On the other hand, people who have been homeless or in excessively traumatic situations are basically like it’s never gonna be that bad again, and I survived it so I can handle basically anything. I fall into that second category, which is why I start so much stuff including building communities, literally everywhere I go

kderbyma 3y ago

So true.....I had to turn around and give up many times because the bills needed paying, my parents were just as broke as me, and no rich friends.... I know a ton of people who had their credit cards paid, student loans paid, housing paid, car payments, etc .... parents all gave them the hand outs and helped them and they were able to constantly have fun, socialize and party and meet more and more people....I have been forced to work for reality