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I know people mention that this advice smacks of survivorship bias, and I think that's pretty obviously going to be a part of any advice given about economic ou

by advael 3y ago

I know people mention that this advice smacks of survivorship bias, and I think that's pretty obviously going to be a part of any advice given about economic outcomes whose odds of working out are perhaps a whole order of magnitude better than lottery tickets I think it's more important to note how talks like this use "children" as an excuse to present a very sanitized version of the history being discussed. I think a massively underappreciated mechanism by which American culture distorts history is by its very lax and sometimes supportive norms about fudging the truth and sometimes even outright lying to children

kelnos 3y ago
The biggest thing missing from this talk -- something that would have been easy to include, even for a younger audience -- is that the majority of startups fail, and even many startups that do well enough end up making their founders less money than if they went to work for another company. It feels irresponsible to tell kids how they can build the next Google, without also telling them how likely it is they won't succeed at it. Granted, most people in their early 20s have very little to lose, so a failed startup may not be much of a problem, outside of the stress and emotional effects.
- advael 3y ago
  I mean, like most advice from my generation and prior ones, the notion that people in their 20s can't fuck up too badly because they have little to lose applies considerably less well to all but the fairly affluent people in their 20s today. For many, taking risks means being gated out of the financial system by bad credit, being behind in an unforgiving job market, and possibly even destitution if they don't have a safety net of some kind To be clear, this was always true to some degree, but inequality is higher, industries have more power and thus workers have less, and safety nets that don't come from your parents being well-off are weaker (and fewer people's parents are well-off) than when I was a kid, and this has actually been true for a few subsequent generations of kids
seanhunter 3y ago
The best advice to give children is that they should be born to rich, influential and well-connected parents. That will give them a huge advantage in all walks of life including if they want to start a startup. Larry and Sergei had the benefit of rich, influential and well-connected parents, as did Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Paul Graham himself.
- advael 3y ago
  I think the place where this is most apparent in the speech is the bit about selective universities. It's interesting the way people like Graham talk about how universities work, because they're actually kind of the primary place where a particular sleight of hand happens. Every very wealthy person I've ever met believes wealth and intelligence to be tightly coupled. Some will even talk about these things as though they're completely equivalent. Universities kind of double down on this equivalence in some ways, as they are the de facto credentialing system for the job market, although there's some evidence that this is for the first time in quite a while becoming less true in some sectors, it's still a huge part of the reality of how social mobility is gated. So when Graham frames the role of "selective" universities in the success of various famous startups, he's totally right that they're excellent places to network. But his conception of their selectivity is pretty strange. It's pretty well-understood by now that a lot of mechanisms can get people into great schools via the wealth and influence of their parents rather than "smarts and determination". I once read someone who pointed out that bringing in a few "scholarship" kids who are less well off makes it seem like anyone could get in with the right grades and test scores, and the incentive is to have just enough of these to ambiguate who is there for what reasons. To launder the "wealthy, well-connected" with some "smart, determined" cred. It's telling therefore that he leaves out one of the most important parts of the networking value of universities: They're a great place to meet funders, and the top tier universities also have significant resources to facilitate student projects that may turn into companies, compared to other institutions
lupire 3y ago
Why do think this is an "American" thing? The author is British, for one.
- advael 3y ago
  My bad, it's just that literally every single example he gave was a US company, so I got mixed up That said, the US and Britain are both quite world-class at both endorsing lying to children and revisionist history are definitely among

by advael 3y ago

kelnos 3y ago

The biggest thing missing from this talk -- something that would have been easy to include, even for a younger audience -- is that the majority of startups fail, and even many startups that do well enough end up making their founders less money than if they went to work for another company. It feels irresponsible to tell kids how they can build the next Google, without also telling them how likely it is they won't succeed at it. Granted, most people in their early 20s have very little to lose, so a failed startup may not be much of a problem, outside of the stress and emotional effects.

advael 3y ago
I mean, like most advice from my generation and prior ones, the notion that people in their 20s can't fuck up too badly because they have little to lose applies considerably less well to all but the fairly affluent people in their 20s today. For many, taking risks means being gated out of the financial system by bad credit, being behind in an unforgiving job market, and possibly even destitution if they don't have a safety net of some kind To be clear, this was always true to some degree, but inequality is higher, industries have more power and thus workers have less, and safety nets that don't come from your parents being well-off are weaker (and fewer people's parents are well-off) than when I was a kid, and this has actually been true for a few subsequent generations of kids

seanhunter 3y ago

The best advice to give children is that they should be born to rich, influential and well-connected parents. That will give them a huge advantage in all walks of life including if they want to start a startup. Larry and Sergei had the benefit of rich, influential and well-connected parents, as did Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Paul Graham himself.

advael 3y ago
I think the place where this is most apparent in the speech is the bit about selective universities. It's interesting the way people like Graham talk about how universities work, because they're actually kind of the primary place where a particular sleight of hand happens. Every very wealthy person I've ever met believes wealth and intelligence to be tightly coupled. Some will even talk about these things as though they're completely equivalent. Universities kind of double down on this equivalence in some ways, as they are the de facto credentialing system for the job market, although there's some evidence that this is for the first time in quite a while becoming less true in some sectors, it's still a huge part of the reality of how social mobility is gated. So when Graham frames the role of "selective" universities in the success of various famous startups, he's totally right that they're excellent places to network. But his conception of their selectivity is pretty strange. It's pretty well-understood by now that a lot of mechanisms can get people into great schools via the wealth and influence of their parents rather than "smarts and determination". I once read someone who pointed out that bringing in a few "scholarship" kids who are less well off makes it seem like anyone could get in with the right grades and test scores, and the incentive is to have just enough of these to ambiguate who is there for what reasons. To launder the "wealthy, well-connected" with some "smart, determined" cred. It's telling therefore that he leaves out one of the most important parts of the networking value of universities: They're a great place to meet funders, and the top tier universities also have significant resources to facilitate student projects that may turn into companies, compared to other institutions

lupire 3y ago

Why do think this is an "American" thing? The author is British, for one.

advael 3y ago
My bad, it's just that literally every single example he gave was a US company, so I got mixed up That said, the US and Britain are both quite world-class at both endorsing lying to children and revisionist history are definitely among