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And, when you finally succeed, some asshole will tell you that you didn't actually build your business. That your success isn't due to having worked hard (beca

And, when you finally succeed, some asshole will tell you that you didn't actually build your business. That your success isn't due to having worked hard (because there are tons of people that work hard) or because you are smart (because lots of people are smart). No, you had nothing to do with building a successful business despite your sacrifices, risk, uncertainty, sleepless nights, good and bad decisions, family sacrifices, etc., etc. You don't matter.

Mvandenbergh 14y ago
Who cares? People say things that are wrong all the time, it's better to ignore them and say "How interesting, I'll keep that in mind" than to devote mental resources to getting upset about it.
- nightski 14y ago
  Not that I feel a particular way about it, but he is the President. People tend to care what he says. Just sayin.
  - Mvandenbergh 14y ago
    The President? I had to look this up (I'm not American) and it looks like he was intending to refer to the public infrastructure that all businesses use rather than the businesses themselves. Anyway, I don't much care for the politics of any country but it's still a waste of time to pay too much attention to the minutia of political campaigning. Before November, both parties are going to say a great number of things that are untrue, out of context, and that they don't believe. If you let yourself get upset by the circus show months before election time, you'll go barking mad.
    - MBCook 14y ago
      He was, and it's perfectly clear if you listen to the whole clip. But it was one of those statements that was trivial to use out of context and perfectly fit the Republican narrative about Obama's views. I'm a Republican, and I've thought it was a pathetic tactic since I first heard it. But that's why I nearly stop listening to the news during political seasons.
  - _pius 14y ago
    Except that the President didn't actually say that. Moreover, that characterization has been widely debunked even by the likes of ABC, CBS, and NBC who rarely call bullshit on anything. Aren't you embarrassed to repeat that false talking point here, especially when it has zero to do with the OP?
    - deleted 14y ago
      [deleted]
    - nightski 14y ago
      I didn't repeat it, someone else did... I was merely saying that the President isn't some random "person". His words have influence. Nor would I ever be embarrassed about anything on Hacker News. haha
chrisbennet 14y ago
See Just World Fallacy
petercooper 14y ago
Who would actually say that? Sounds like you've had some experience of this. A lot of conservatives misinterpreted something Obama said as meaning much of what you've said, even though if one reads the entire paragraph, the "that" in his sentence was infrastructure such as the Internet, roads and bridges.
- anamax 14y ago
  Not so fast. No one questions that other people built roads etc. (Govt didn't provide the resources - it only collected them.) The only way that Obama's comment is not a non sequitur is if he meant more than that, that people who "built" were treated differently than the people who didn't wrt those resources. I get that you think that Obama should be given the benefit of the doubt, but don't other people get that same benefit? For example, one of the most common sentiments expressed to people trying to concieve is "you've got to keep a positive mental outlook", the implication being that a negative mental outlook reduces the odds of conception. I have no idea whether or not mental outlook has that effect but we're damning a US senate candidate who said that it did.
  - ktizo 14y ago
    I have no idea whether or not mental outlook has that effect but we're damning a US senate candidate who said that it did. I don't think that was quite what he said, if you are referring to Tod Akin.
    - anamax 14y ago
      >> I have no idea whether or not mental outlook has that effect but we're damning a US senate candidate who said that it did. > I don't think that was quite what he said, if you are referring to Tod Akin. Actually, it was. He said that women who were raped were less likely to concieve. He didn't specify the mechanism, but mental state is the only plausible candidate. Like I said, a huge fraction of the population believes that mental state affects conception. Moreover, I'll bet that I can find at least one law protecting women that was enacted based, at least partly, on that theory. Or, do you want to argue that how he said it matters? Or, do you want to argue that the mental distress associated with rape has different effects than other mental distress? It was a monumentally stupid thing to say, but not because of the scientific truth or lack thereof. And, if a Democrat had said it, it wouldn't have been an issue and you'd have defended said Democrat. See, for example, the near-daily gaffes of VP Biden. Or, Obama's "you didn't build that".
thaumaturgy 14y ago
This comment has absolutely no place in this thread. This wasn't the appropriate place to inject your politics.
- MBCook 14y ago
  I don't know, it seems fitting to me. If you ignore the current political mess surrounding that (out of context) statement, it's still true. If you reach any kind of success, you'll find people who will say it wasn't you. You got rich off of someone else's work. You had it all handed to you. Or the most common of all, you got lucky. It doesn't matter that you worked hard, or studied, or failed 50 times before. You were in the right place at the right time, and that's why you're making so much money. It was only because of the cosmic lottery that they, sitting around and not doing much, didn't become the rich person.
  - kamaal 14y ago
    Not that I disagree with you. But some people do as a matter of fact get rich by being at the right place at the right time. Just like how not all hardworking people are successful. Not all successful people are hardworking. The simplest example I can give you is to be born in a rich family. That's certainly a cosmic lottery.
  - flyinRyan 14y ago
    >It doesn't matter that you worked hard, or studied, or failed 50 times before. You were in the right place at the right time, and that's why you're making so much money. It's not that it doesn't matter, it's just that hard work isn't enough. Luck does play a big role. Of course people who come in and try to tell you that it had nothing to do what you did are jerks, but people on the other side try to say that it was all them and had nothing to do with luck (usually right before they blast poor people for not "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps").
_pius 14y ago
Why the gratuitous, partisan threadcrapping? And with a debunked "quote" to boot?
ktizo 14y ago
some asshole will tell you that you didn't actually build your business. I though the whole thing was very similar to Carl Sagan's comment - If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. - and I never thought that Carl Sagan was having a go at bakers.
- robomartin 14y ago
  Right. The difference is that Carl Sagan didn't use such comments to instigate and exploit class warfare and divide a country. Carl Sagan didn't use such statements to brainwash the masses for personal gain. Carl Sagan didn't use that statement to mean that a successful baker, today, owes their success to the creation of the universe. We operate within the reality that we happen to live within at the time of our lives. The Vikings had one reality. They moved within it and flourished. People born in England in the 1,200's had a very different reality to construct their lives around than those born 200, 400 or 800 years later. That's just the way things work. You use the tools you have at your disposal. It would be unthinkable to propose that someone in the year 1,200 invent the transistor. Lot's had to happen before the transistor could become a reality. Did they fail because of a failure of government to provide the necessary infrastructure? No, they failed because they would have been, quite simply put, way ahead of their time. Did Fleming come across Penicillin because government built roads? Not really. How about Madame Courie? Tesla? Hertz? Newton? IBM? Dell? Staples? Coca Cola? Did the engineers in the 1940's owe the development of the transistor to the roads, sewers and other services government managed for us? Of course not. Their success was the result of a myriad of personal factors, not the least of which were inspiration, intellect, drive and being in the right place at the right time. The infrastructure was there already. It wasn't built for them to be successful at this one task. It is an insult to the human condition to propose that we owe our personal success to government. Historically speaking, governments have caused humanity far more pain, agony, death and loss than almost any other human invention. Individuals don't go to war, governments do. So, Mr. Obama, do we also owe the 50 million people who died in World War 2 to the infrastructure the US Government put into place: roads, railroads, phones, telegraphs, airports, etc.? Of course not. Don't try to make connections where they don't exist. Politics sucks.
dbecker 14y ago
And this is how a topical thread about startups gets derailed into unproductive political bickering.
- canadiancreed 14y ago
  And suppresses better and more on-topic answers to boot. Removing the grandstanding of this tangent would greatly improve this thread and give the focus to something that the vast majority of people visiting here would be interested in.
xfernandox 14y ago
The political argument isn't that you had "nothing" to do with your success. All businesses require help from many factors. You need luck. You need other people (um, like customers, your employees, the gov. for public infrastructure investment, your family, your friends). It's just egregious to claim that you alone are 100% responsible for your success, like you don't interact in a world with 7+ billion. You're telling me your business doesn't rely any small subset of those people? I don't doubt that you work hard, or don't deserve your success.

Mvandenbergh 14y ago

Who cares? People say things that are wrong all the time, it's better to ignore them and say "How interesting, I'll keep that in mind" than to devote mental resources to getting upset about it.

nightski 14y ago
Not that I feel a particular way about it, but he is the President. People tend to care what he says. Just sayin.
- Mvandenbergh 14y ago
  The President? I had to look this up (I'm not American) and it looks like he was intending to refer to the public infrastructure that all businesses use rather than the businesses themselves. Anyway, I don't much care for the politics of any country but it's still a waste of time to pay too much attention to the minutia of political campaigning. Before November, both parties are going to say a great number of things that are untrue, out of context, and that they don't believe. If you let yourself get upset by the circus show months before election time, you'll go barking mad.
  - MBCook 14y ago
    He was, and it's perfectly clear if you listen to the whole clip. But it was one of those statements that was trivial to use out of context and perfectly fit the Republican narrative about Obama's views. I'm a Republican, and I've thought it was a pathetic tactic since I first heard it. But that's why I nearly stop listening to the news during political seasons.
- _pius 14y ago
  Except that the President didn't actually say that. Moreover, that characterization has been widely debunked even by the likes of ABC, CBS, and NBC who rarely call bullshit on anything. Aren't you embarrassed to repeat that false talking point here, especially when it has zero to do with the OP?
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - nightski 14y ago
    I didn't repeat it, someone else did... I was merely saying that the President isn't some random "person". His words have influence. Nor would I ever be embarrassed about anything on Hacker News. haha

chrisbennet 14y ago

See Just World Fallacy

petercooper 14y ago

Who would actually say that? Sounds like you've had some experience of this. A lot of conservatives misinterpreted something Obama said as meaning much of what you've said, even though if one reads the entire paragraph, the "that" in his sentence was infrastructure such as the Internet, roads and bridges.

anamax 14y ago
Not so fast. No one questions that other people built roads etc. (Govt didn't provide the resources - it only collected them.) The only way that Obama's comment is not a non sequitur is if he meant more than that, that people who "built" were treated differently than the people who didn't wrt those resources. I get that you think that Obama should be given the benefit of the doubt, but don't other people get that same benefit? For example, one of the most common sentiments expressed to people trying to concieve is "you've got to keep a positive mental outlook", the implication being that a negative mental outlook reduces the odds of conception. I have no idea whether or not mental outlook has that effect but we're damning a US senate candidate who said that it did.
- ktizo 14y ago
  I have no idea whether or not mental outlook has that effect but we're damning a US senate candidate who said that it did. I don't think that was quite what he said, if you are referring to Tod Akin.
  - anamax 14y ago
    >> I have no idea whether or not mental outlook has that effect but we're damning a US senate candidate who said that it did. > I don't think that was quite what he said, if you are referring to Tod Akin. Actually, it was. He said that women who were raped were less likely to concieve. He didn't specify the mechanism, but mental state is the only plausible candidate. Like I said, a huge fraction of the population believes that mental state affects conception. Moreover, I'll bet that I can find at least one law protecting women that was enacted based, at least partly, on that theory. Or, do you want to argue that how he said it matters? Or, do you want to argue that the mental distress associated with rape has different effects than other mental distress? It was a monumentally stupid thing to say, but not because of the scientific truth or lack thereof. And, if a Democrat had said it, it wouldn't have been an issue and you'd have defended said Democrat. See, for example, the near-daily gaffes of VP Biden. Or, Obama's "you didn't build that".

thaumaturgy 14y ago

This comment has absolutely no place in this thread. This wasn't the appropriate place to inject your politics.

MBCook 14y ago
I don't know, it seems fitting to me. If you ignore the current political mess surrounding that (out of context) statement, it's still true. If you reach any kind of success, you'll find people who will say it wasn't you. You got rich off of someone else's work. You had it all handed to you. Or the most common of all, you got lucky. It doesn't matter that you worked hard, or studied, or failed 50 times before. You were in the right place at the right time, and that's why you're making so much money. It was only because of the cosmic lottery that they, sitting around and not doing much, didn't become the rich person.
- kamaal 14y ago
  Not that I disagree with you. But some people do as a matter of fact get rich by being at the right place at the right time. Just like how not all hardworking people are successful. Not all successful people are hardworking. The simplest example I can give you is to be born in a rich family. That's certainly a cosmic lottery.
- flyinRyan 14y ago
  >It doesn't matter that you worked hard, or studied, or failed 50 times before. You were in the right place at the right time, and that's why you're making so much money. It's not that it doesn't matter, it's just that hard work isn't enough. Luck does play a big role. Of course people who come in and try to tell you that it had nothing to do what you did are jerks, but people on the other side try to say that it was all them and had nothing to do with luck (usually right before they blast poor people for not "pulling themselves up by their bootstraps").

_pius 14y ago

Why the gratuitous, partisan threadcrapping? And with a debunked "quote" to boot?

ktizo 14y ago

some asshole will tell you that you didn't actually build your business. I though the whole thing was very similar to Carl Sagan's comment - If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. - and I never thought that Carl Sagan was having a go at bakers.

robomartin 14y ago
Right. The difference is that Carl Sagan didn't use such comments to instigate and exploit class warfare and divide a country. Carl Sagan didn't use such statements to brainwash the masses for personal gain. Carl Sagan didn't use that statement to mean that a successful baker, today, owes their success to the creation of the universe. We operate within the reality that we happen to live within at the time of our lives. The Vikings had one reality. They moved within it and flourished. People born in England in the 1,200's had a very different reality to construct their lives around than those born 200, 400 or 800 years later. That's just the way things work. You use the tools you have at your disposal. It would be unthinkable to propose that someone in the year 1,200 invent the transistor. Lot's had to happen before the transistor could become a reality. Did they fail because of a failure of government to provide the necessary infrastructure? No, they failed because they would have been, quite simply put, way ahead of their time. Did Fleming come across Penicillin because government built roads? Not really. How about Madame Courie? Tesla? Hertz? Newton? IBM? Dell? Staples? Coca Cola? Did the engineers in the 1940's owe the development of the transistor to the roads, sewers and other services government managed for us? Of course not. Their success was the result of a myriad of personal factors, not the least of which were inspiration, intellect, drive and being in the right place at the right time. The infrastructure was there already. It wasn't built for them to be successful at this one task. It is an insult to the human condition to propose that we owe our personal success to government. Historically speaking, governments have caused humanity far more pain, agony, death and loss than almost any other human invention. Individuals don't go to war, governments do. So, Mr. Obama, do we also owe the 50 million people who died in World War 2 to the infrastructure the US Government put into place: roads, railroads, phones, telegraphs, airports, etc.? Of course not. Don't try to make connections where they don't exist. Politics sucks.

dbecker 14y ago

And this is how a topical thread about startups gets derailed into unproductive political bickering.

canadiancreed 14y ago
And suppresses better and more on-topic answers to boot. Removing the grandstanding of this tangent would greatly improve this thread and give the focus to something that the vast majority of people visiting here would be interested in.

xfernandox 14y ago

The political argument isn't that you had "nothing" to do with your success. All businesses require help from many factors. You need luck. You need other people (um, like customers, your employees, the gov. for public infrastructure investment, your family, your friends). It's just egregious to claim that you alone are 100% responsible for your success, like you don't interact in a world with 7+ billion. You're telling me your business doesn't rely any small subset of those people? I don't doubt that you work hard, or don't deserve your success.