4 ms·

There is also survivor bias at play here. Succeeding without safety net is hard -> only the best can do it -> the best entrepreneurs you know did not had a saf

by enaaem 11mo ago

There is also survivor bias at play here. Succeeding without safety net is hard -> only the best can do it -> the best entrepreneurs you know did not had a safety net

hammock 11mo ago
Then let’s control for that. Among people with a decent safety net, can we correlate eventual success with number of tries? The answer seems self evident, but idk for sure, and I would like to know the Gini coefficient of successes vs failures among safety netters be that of non-safety netters. Wouldn’t we expect the successes within the safety net to be massively larger on average than those of the non-safety netters, given that a safety net affords you so many more swings to take? Your comment suggests that this is not the case, driven by the selection/survivor effect within non-safety net
- lesuorac 11mo ago
  I mean Gates, Musk, Bezos, etc all had a safety net. Also need to define what successful means because a lot of trades people are successful solo-prenuers but don't make more than say a doctor.
  - hammock 11mo ago
    Look at success in buckets. 10x , 100x, 1000x etc
  - jryle70 11mo ago
    In a thread about survivor bias, and you fall for the same trap. How many people coming from wealthy background end up failing? Take Bill Gates, his father cofounded a law firm, and his mother was a board members of several firms. That is a very wealthy background, but not outrageously so. How many people of the same level of wealth became successful businesspeople? It's said that his mom being on the same board as IBM's CEO at the time was a more instrumental factor to his eventual success than his family's wealth, and his own effort of course.
    - majormajor 11mo ago
      > It's said that his mom being on the same board as IBM's CEO at the time was a more instrumental factor to his eventual success than his family's wealth, and his own effort of course. This sounds a lot like "his family's wealth was a more instrumental factor than his family's wealth" since "being on a board" is pretty rarified air. It's not Gates-himself-level wealthy, but what percentile is that? 90th? 95th? 99th?
    - sho_hn 11mo ago
      > but not outrageously so Compared to 99.99% of the 8.3bn people on the planet, yes. HN never ceases to amaze me with its conception of what "wealthy and successful" means.
    - WalterBright 11mo ago
      Gates received $5000 from his family for his business. I've read accounts of Microsoft's early days. It was self-sustaining very quickly. I also know something about compilers and interpreters. BASIC of that era was simply not difficult to create. Yes, Gates & Allen had access to a PDP-10 at Harvard which helped. But it was not required, as Woz proved by writing Apple BASIC in a notebook and hand assembled it. I also know that Hal Finney wrote a BASIC in 1978 or so that fit in a 2K EPROM (for Intellivision). As I recall, it didn't take him very long. So no, Microsoft is simply not a result of massive infusions of money. An awful lot of people had the ability to create Microsoft, what they lacked was vision, drive, and willingness to risk. And no, Gates and Allen were not going to starve if they failed, even without their parents' money.
      - deleted 11mo ago
        [deleted]
    - WalterBright 11mo ago
      > his mom being on the same board as IBM's CEO When IBM came knocking, Bill Gates referred them to Gary Kildall. Kildall (for whatever reason) muffed the deal, and Gates didn't pass on that opportunity again. Gary had the opportunity, and came from a middle class company. He invested in his company with his own resources.
  - EGreg 11mo ago
    People, it wasn’t just a safety net. Bezos’s mom was his first investor, giving him $300K. Then he also had connections to millionaires through his family Bill Gates’ mother, Mary Gates, was instrumental in securing Microsoft's first major deal with IBM through her connections. His family was wealthy and provided connections and support
    - billy99k 11mo ago
      Sure, but if Bill Gates was a drug addict with no software, there would have been no deal and he certainly wouldn't have been successful. Whenever I see the topic of success, people LOVE to talk about 'survivorship bias' as a way to somehow discredit the person that is successful and also give an excuse as to why they might not be successful. It's pretty destructive in a community that's supposed to be about startups and building businesses. This is why I originally came here years ago, but it seems like the mindset has shifted to anti-capitalist group think.
      - raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
        No one is discrediting his success. It’s just the banal idea of if you have “grit” and work really hard, you are somehow guaranteed success or even have more than a slim chance.
        bear141 11mo ago
        What is the other way of going about things? Assuming you will fail and never trying?
        raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
        Find companies that make a lot of money and convince them to give you some of that money in exchange for your labor if you want the best risk/reward ratio. I would much rather be in the position of an intern I mentored who at 22 made over $700K in gross income between cash and RSUs (that could easily be converted into cash unlike “equity” in private companies) their first four years out of college than some struggling founded trying to start yet another AI company so grateful they got $200k from YC while still eating beans and rice that they had to split among three founders.
- majormajor 11mo ago
  I wouldn't assume size of success is correlated with "having success or not." It's notoriously hard to predict what business ideas will succeed at all, let alone be mega-billion-success-stories. Many things could've gone differently leading to Bezos being a ten- or hundred-millionaire vs a multi-billionaire even in worlds where Amazon was successful. AWS, for instance, was not in the original plan. I think the strongest correlations would be between: "has safety net" and "has success" - one major factor here is not having a poverty mentality that would lead to panicking and quitting early as well as between "has safety net" and "takes multiple swings if no initial success", for the direct reason of "can afford to do so."
  - Dylan16807 11mo ago
    Citation needed that panicking and quitting early is a "poverty mentality".

by enaaem 11mo ago

There is also survivor bias at play here. Succeeding without safety net is hard -> only the best can do it -> the best entrepreneurs you know did not had a safety net

hammock 11mo ago

Then let’s control for that. Among people with a decent safety net, can we correlate eventual success with number of tries? The answer seems self evident, but idk for sure, and I would like to know the Gini coefficient of successes vs failures among safety netters be that of non-safety netters. Wouldn’t we expect the successes within the safety net to be massively larger on average than those of the non-safety netters, given that a safety net affords you so many more swings to take? Your comment suggests that this is not the case, driven by the selection/survivor effect within non-safety net

lesuorac 11mo ago
I mean Gates, Musk, Bezos, etc all had a safety net. Also need to define what successful means because a lot of trades people are successful solo-prenuers but don't make more than say a doctor.
- hammock 11mo ago
  Look at success in buckets. 10x , 100x, 1000x etc
- jryle70 11mo ago
  In a thread about survivor bias, and you fall for the same trap. How many people coming from wealthy background end up failing? Take Bill Gates, his father cofounded a law firm, and his mother was a board members of several firms. That is a very wealthy background, but not outrageously so. How many people of the same level of wealth became successful businesspeople? It's said that his mom being on the same board as IBM's CEO at the time was a more instrumental factor to his eventual success than his family's wealth, and his own effort of course.
  - majormajor 11mo ago
    > It's said that his mom being on the same board as IBM's CEO at the time was a more instrumental factor to his eventual success than his family's wealth, and his own effort of course. This sounds a lot like "his family's wealth was a more instrumental factor than his family's wealth" since "being on a board" is pretty rarified air. It's not Gates-himself-level wealthy, but what percentile is that? 90th? 95th? 99th?
  - sho_hn 11mo ago
    > but not outrageously so Compared to 99.99% of the 8.3bn people on the planet, yes. HN never ceases to amaze me with its conception of what "wealthy and successful" means.
  - WalterBright 11mo ago
    Gates received $5000 from his family for his business. I've read accounts of Microsoft's early days. It was self-sustaining very quickly. I also know something about compilers and interpreters. BASIC of that era was simply not difficult to create. Yes, Gates & Allen had access to a PDP-10 at Harvard which helped. But it was not required, as Woz proved by writing Apple BASIC in a notebook and hand assembled it. I also know that Hal Finney wrote a BASIC in 1978 or so that fit in a 2K EPROM (for Intellivision). As I recall, it didn't take him very long. So no, Microsoft is simply not a result of massive infusions of money. An awful lot of people had the ability to create Microsoft, what they lacked was vision, drive, and willingness to risk. And no, Gates and Allen were not going to starve if they failed, even without their parents' money.
    - deleted 11mo ago
      [deleted]
  - WalterBright 11mo ago
    > his mom being on the same board as IBM's CEO When IBM came knocking, Bill Gates referred them to Gary Kildall. Kildall (for whatever reason) muffed the deal, and Gates didn't pass on that opportunity again. Gary had the opportunity, and came from a middle class company. He invested in his company with his own resources.
- EGreg 11mo ago
  People, it wasn’t just a safety net. Bezos’s mom was his first investor, giving him $300K. Then he also had connections to millionaires through his family Bill Gates’ mother, Mary Gates, was instrumental in securing Microsoft's first major deal with IBM through her connections. His family was wealthy and provided connections and support
  - billy99k 11mo ago
    Sure, but if Bill Gates was a drug addict with no software, there would have been no deal and he certainly wouldn't have been successful. Whenever I see the topic of success, people LOVE to talk about 'survivorship bias' as a way to somehow discredit the person that is successful and also give an excuse as to why they might not be successful. It's pretty destructive in a community that's supposed to be about startups and building businesses. This is why I originally came here years ago, but it seems like the mindset has shifted to anti-capitalist group think.
    - raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
      No one is discrediting his success. It’s just the banal idea of if you have “grit” and work really hard, you are somehow guaranteed success or even have more than a slim chance.
      - bear141 11mo ago
        What is the other way of going about things? Assuming you will fail and never trying?
        raw_anon_1111 11mo ago
        Find companies that make a lot of money and convince them to give you some of that money in exchange for your labor if you want the best risk/reward ratio. I would much rather be in the position of an intern I mentored who at 22 made over $700K in gross income between cash and RSUs (that could easily be converted into cash unlike “equity” in private companies) their first four years out of college than some struggling founded trying to start yet another AI company so grateful they got $200k from YC while still eating beans and rice that they had to split among three founders.
majormajor 11mo ago
I wouldn't assume size of success is correlated with "having success or not." It's notoriously hard to predict what business ideas will succeed at all, let alone be mega-billion-success-stories. Many things could've gone differently leading to Bezos being a ten- or hundred-millionaire vs a multi-billionaire even in worlds where Amazon was successful. AWS, for instance, was not in the original plan. I think the strongest correlations would be between: "has safety net" and "has success" - one major factor here is not having a poverty mentality that would lead to panicking and quitting early as well as between "has safety net" and "takes multiple swings if no initial success", for the direct reason of "can afford to do so."
- Dylan16807 11mo ago
  Citation needed that panicking and quitting early is a "poverty mentality".