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Oh yay, another post like this. > Running a startup is hard work. No-one disputes that. But if you are in the position to run your own startup you are incredib

by n3rdy 14y ago

Oh yay, another post like this. > Running a startup is hard work. No-one disputes that. But if you are in the position to run your own startup you are incredibly lucky. There are a lot of people out there that might be far better entrepreneurs than you, but because they weren't born into a situation that gave them a good education and the ability to take a risk, they never will. Nobody is born into a situation that ~20 years later destine them to run a startup. The type of person who takes charge of their life, also takes charge of their education, you cannot learn some of the skills it takes to be a self made person. Risk appetite isn't something predetermined at birth, and it isn't learned from someones environment. You can develop the ability to take risk from surrounding yourself with successful people, just as easily as you develop it from having nothing left to lose, and realizing how much you've been overestimating your worst case scenarios. > Running a startup is stressful, but don't try to pretend that there aren't enormous upsides. You can do whatever you want, you can work with whomever you want. If what you want to do is work and focus on success, then you can do whatever you want, but there are plenty of moments where you will want to be doing something else. This is called self-discipline, its just like the discipline normal people are subjected to, if you ignore it, you lose your job, or your startup fails. > How many other people in the world can do that? Not as many as I would like. There are organizations like Kiva that aim to give those less fortunate an opportunity, and hopefully more pop up that make it even easier. > The guy earning minimum wage in his factory job, spending all his salary just to keep out of poverty- if he fails, he is fired, and he and his family are screwed. He is the person whose face is much more likely to be covered in actual dust and sweat and blood. He can also get another factory job. Try failing a startup and just starting another, its going to be a lot harder than pounding the pavement and submitting resumes. > Being in this industry is a position of extreme privilege. Harping on about it as if it's a heavy burden to bear is utter nonsense and only helps the perception of "startup folk" as deeply out of tune with how the rest of the world works. Anyone harping on it as a burden has the wrong attitude, and frankly I would be surprised if they lasted. It is definitely not extreme privilege. These companies don't just start themselves and adopt whoever has the winning ticket. You have to have a good idea, and you have to be willing to act on it. Many people have good ideas, and could grow a successful business out of their idea, but they have the wrong ideas about what is stopping them, so they never try. These people come from the same communities as any startup founder. The difference is a founder dares to challenge the beliefs that have been crammed down their throat, even if everyone around them insists its a bad idea.

scotch_drinker 14y ago
All success is largely dependent on luck and culture. Where you are born, who your parents are, etc. Being in a position where you can take charge of your life is also largely dependent on the same luck and culture. I think this is what the parent is stressing.
- n3rdy 14y ago
  > All success is largely dependent on luck and culture. All success? > Where you are born, who your parents are, etc. This is only true up to a certain point. Obviously if you were born in the ocean and your parents are dolphins, you're going to have a hard time starting and running a coal mine. Every time I hear someone talking about the role luck has with success, they are usually giving examples of how bad luck makes success impossible. Nobody here insisting that there is more to success than luck is trying to say something like "people in North Korea just need to tough it out". We're talking about the millions of people who have every opportunity to be successful, but don't do so, because they are unwilling to commit to what they perceive to be too risky, and too difficult. The attitude you and the parent stress is the attitude that keeps so many people lower than they should be. Successful people usually are not successful on their first try either, how many times do they have to fail before you would attribute their success to their efforts and not that "well, 3,847th time is always a charm"?
  - scotch_drinker 14y ago
    Yup, all success. It's a combination of luck and hard work. Rarely are there success stories that involve either no luck at all or no hard work at all. But the work almost always follows the luck, i.e. if you are born an inner city black child in say the poorest parts of Baltimore, no amount of hard work may make a difference. And it may in fact be that being born into that scenario renders you unable to see that hard work enables success because your culture doesn't teach you. I'm not saying that successful people were only successful because of luck. But they were successful because they were born in correct circumstances and cultures that allowed them to become successful. I don't disagree that lots of people have every opportunity to be successful and choose not to. But I'm talking about the ones who are actually successful and how luck and circumstances are very important.

by n3rdy 14y ago

scotch_drinker 14y ago

All success is largely dependent on luck and culture. Where you are born, who your parents are, etc. Being in a position where you can take charge of your life is also largely dependent on the same luck and culture. I think this is what the parent is stressing.

n3rdy 14y ago
> All success is largely dependent on luck and culture. All success? > Where you are born, who your parents are, etc. This is only true up to a certain point. Obviously if you were born in the ocean and your parents are dolphins, you're going to have a hard time starting and running a coal mine. Every time I hear someone talking about the role luck has with success, they are usually giving examples of how bad luck makes success impossible. Nobody here insisting that there is more to success than luck is trying to say something like "people in North Korea just need to tough it out". We're talking about the millions of people who have every opportunity to be successful, but don't do so, because they are unwilling to commit to what they perceive to be too risky, and too difficult. The attitude you and the parent stress is the attitude that keeps so many people lower than they should be. Successful people usually are not successful on their first try either, how many times do they have to fail before you would attribute their success to their efforts and not that "well, 3,847th time is always a charm"?
- scotch_drinker 14y ago
  Yup, all success. It's a combination of luck and hard work. Rarely are there success stories that involve either no luck at all or no hard work at all. But the work almost always follows the luck, i.e. if you are born an inner city black child in say the poorest parts of Baltimore, no amount of hard work may make a difference. And it may in fact be that being born into that scenario renders you unable to see that hard work enables success because your culture doesn't teach you. I'm not saying that successful people were only successful because of luck. But they were successful because they were born in correct circumstances and cultures that allowed them to become successful. I don't disagree that lots of people have every opportunity to be successful and choose not to. But I'm talking about the ones who are actually successful and how luck and circumstances are very important.