4 ms·

Europeans arent as unreflectingly captialistic and "frontier"sy. Americans have always seen success in business as an crowning achievement. Europeans have tradi

Europeans arent as unreflectingly captialistic and "frontier"sy. Americans have always seen success in business as an crowning achievement. Europeans have traditionally found this kind of pre-occupation with monetary success somewhat crass or trivial. > Europeans don’t realize that if a company that went from nothing to connecting 7 million homes is not celebrated... That's total BS. You dont need a culture of fanatical adoration of business success for their to be successful businesses. > if a company ... is not celebrated ... we will not get young Europeans on the right track It really worrisome how these people have to go around reminding everyone how amazing they are. I think our children will do just fine without being propagandised by self-aggrandizing money-chasers.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
bogs_carut 13y ago
This post contains a lot of loaded rhetoric. Are you implying that the sort of people who assume the degree of risk required to build a financially-successful business (specifically of the "home-run" magnitude implied by a multi-billion-dollar acquisition, IPO, etc) are merely "self-aggrandizing money-chasers?" Companies of that scale sometimes have the ability to improve society. There's also the potential for abuse. But if a culture's general attitude toward aspiring to construct such a business entails disdain and mistrust, it hardly seems illogical to consider the possibility that cultural pressures are turning people away from the desire to do something entrepreneurial. And that, I think, is the point that the author was attempting to make.
- coliveira 13y ago
  The idea of great risk for great reward is a myth. The risk that the founder of Facebook assumed for example was close to nil, because he didn't have any job or money to start with. He risked the precious time that he would otherwise use to party at some Harvard fraternity. Similarly for so many other tech founders. They just happened to do well something that they liked at the right time. There are many small business that represent a much bigger risk for their owners, in terms of financial investment and loss of income.
  - melvinram 13y ago
    You're disproving your own point. In the same paragraph, you say "The idea of great risk is a myth" and "There are many small business that represent a much bigger risk for their owners". Think about it.
    - coliveira 13y ago
      The idea that I'm talking about is that the reward from a company is proportional to the risk taken. My example shows that small companies can sometimes impose a greater risk to their founders than the risk taken by the founders of Facebook or Google.
      - jessedhillon 13y ago
        And? What is your point then? Would you be upset if the gold mine you discovered took 100' of digging before it yielded even an ounce, but your neighbor picked a spot where he only needed to dig 10' to get a pound of it? The fact that the risk wasn't called in, so to speak -- that the worst case scenarios did not come to pass -- in no way diminishes what was risked. Beside, you have cherry-picked two cases where it is quite easy to construct a plausible a sounding (and factually false) "no risk" argument. HN routinely features entrepreneurship efforts where much was gained and much was won. Your main gripe appears to be that the risk-reward maxim is not describing a literal, linear relationship. Next up, the sun doesn't always set in the west! (provided certain map orientations, times of the year and fluctuations in magnetic north)
  - borski 13y ago
    Risk is relative. For a broke college student to quit school, move across the country, have no (or little) income, all for an idea that they have no clue will work is a huge risk. In the same vein, someone quitting their job after having already committed to car payments, house payments, and alimony is also a huge risk.
    - foobarqux 13y ago
      He went to Philips-Exeter. He wasn't exactly broke.
- mjburgess 13y ago
  > Are you implying that the sort of people who assume the degree .... are merely "self-aggrandizing money-chasers?" Yes. That's very often the mentality, however you'd like to dress it up. There's a distinction between small-businesses that arent pre-occupied with growth and "success" and those which are. Sure, if you have your own bakery/etc. then you're probably doing that because youre interested in the craft of baking. The fact that you own the company is kinda incidental to your passion for a craft. I'm saying that these kind of people who build up multi-million/billion-dollar companies are basically interchangable money managers. You can take a telecoms business-genuis and put him in insurance, or manufacture, or anywhere: and people routinely do! Because the "skill" at that level is merely business as such. All I got from this article is "people should aspire to be successful in business", which I think is kinda stupid and dangerous. People should be passionate about, eg., giving people healthcare, creating amazing art or music, writing the best novels, finding out how the world works... that we have businesses and that they make money is something which is meant to facilitate our dreams not become them. Capitalism abstractly is not meant as an end in itself, but almost everywhere we look today it has become one. Growth, expansion, money, "success" for its own sake - not for the sake of beauty/truth/skill/knowledge/love/etc.
  - colevscode 13y ago
    First, thanks for your refreshing perspective. I agree that the focus on wealth and growth isn't going to help us create interesting things as a society. However I do think there's a craft to building a business that can stand along side the craft of baking or the pursuit of art.
coliveira 13y ago
Agreed. Having a lot of money doesn't make you a special person. If you're rich and want to be celebrated, you should probably do something worthy of it rather than making money. Similarly, just because a company was sold for billions of dollars doesn't mean it has any importance - just remember the tech bubble.
melvinram 13y ago
Bullshit. What is crass is the perspective that Americans are unreflectingly capitalistic and pre-occupied with monetary success. Most business owners I know started their business because they saw a need for something and they wanted to deliver what was needed. Financial success is important because it allows their organization to continue functioning but it's hardly the top motivator for business owners I've spoken with. I will concede that there are a fair percentage of businesses that are unreflectingly capitalistic and pre-occupied with monetary success. However, to paint an entire nation with a broad stroke is ignorance at it's worst. It would be the same as saying "The Brits have terrible teeth" or "The French smell." It may be true for a percentage of people but is no way to address a body of people.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- mjburgess 13y ago
  You have this thing called "The American Dream" and you have an entire cultural history tied to self-motivation, entrepreneurship and "pushing the frontier"... Clearly every single american isnt subject to the same cultural pre-occupations, that's absurd. But there are only certain cultural phenomena possible in one place or another. A right-wing party in the UK could not even begin to use any of the ideas or rhetoric of the republican party - they'd be widespread revulsion. We dont sing our national anthem in the UK, we dont "pleg" anything, we dont consider our country "Exceptional" (hence American Exceptionalism). There hasnt been the suggestion that our prime minister is impotent for not interfering in Ukraine, at least, nothing like the inferiority-complex about Obama's lack of big-dickery. The idea that the west is culturally homogenous is "Bullshit". As compared to anywhere in europe, americans are vastly more market-oriented, mistrustful of government, approving of business success, etc. It is simply the case, insofar as I can see, that "business" isnt really a dream of any kind in europe. People dont grow up wanting to run/own/be in business in anyway, we dont really have an "explorer"/inventor dreams either. A considerable amount has been written by the european experience of america and an almost ubquitious theme in the accounts is "the feeling of unlimited possibility", an ostentatiousness and pre-occupation with wealth, etc.
rjtavares 13y ago
Beautiful... except it's not true. A quick google search through negocios.pt (probably the biggest Portuguese business newspaper): * Whatsapp: 41 results * Ono: 4 results Europeans love success stories as much as Americans, but we're too American-focused to notice our own success stories.
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  > Europeans love success stories as much as Americans, but we're too American-focused to notice our own success stories. this. Plus, to be fair, I have never heard of ONO, mostly cos no matter how much of a single European market we are, we are not a single European language, so we are not a single European news feed.
  - _delirium 13y ago
    Yeah, I think in Denmark the media mainly notices American and Danish business, and not as much those from rest of Europe, unless they do something that really impacts people. People definitely care about what Danish businesses are doing. It's true that monetary success isn't the only measure people care about, e.g. Copenhagen Suborbitals, a nonprofit, gets a ton of startup-like tech press. But people also care about monetary success of Danish businesses. If ONO were a Danish company, it'd be on front pages of newspapers. But it's a Spanish telephone company nobody's heard of, so people aren't really interested. I think part of the WhatsApp news wasn't only the location but the "lightweight" aspect. There was a lot of, "wow a company sold for $16b just by making a phone app?!" By contrast people aren't surprised that classic capital-intensive, "heavyweight" infrastructure companies like telcos can be worth billions. Plus, nobody cares about infrastructure unless it's their own infrastructure. DONG Energy recently sold a minority stake to Goldman Sachs for $2 billion, which made huge news in Denmark, but did anyone else read about it?
    - omegant 13y ago
      The problem is that isn't making the news even in Spain..

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

bogs_carut 13y ago

This post contains a lot of loaded rhetoric. Are you implying that the sort of people who assume the degree of risk required to build a financially-successful business (specifically of the "home-run" magnitude implied by a multi-billion-dollar acquisition, IPO, etc) are merely "self-aggrandizing money-chasers?" Companies of that scale sometimes have the ability to improve society. There's also the potential for abuse. But if a culture's general attitude toward aspiring to construct such a business entails disdain and mistrust, it hardly seems illogical to consider the possibility that cultural pressures are turning people away from the desire to do something entrepreneurial. And that, I think, is the point that the author was attempting to make.

coliveira 13y ago
The idea of great risk for great reward is a myth. The risk that the founder of Facebook assumed for example was close to nil, because he didn't have any job or money to start with. He risked the precious time that he would otherwise use to party at some Harvard fraternity. Similarly for so many other tech founders. They just happened to do well something that they liked at the right time. There are many small business that represent a much bigger risk for their owners, in terms of financial investment and loss of income.
- melvinram 13y ago
  You're disproving your own point. In the same paragraph, you say "The idea of great risk is a myth" and "There are many small business that represent a much bigger risk for their owners". Think about it.
  - coliveira 13y ago
    The idea that I'm talking about is that the reward from a company is proportional to the risk taken. My example shows that small companies can sometimes impose a greater risk to their founders than the risk taken by the founders of Facebook or Google.
    - jessedhillon 13y ago
      And? What is your point then? Would you be upset if the gold mine you discovered took 100' of digging before it yielded even an ounce, but your neighbor picked a spot where he only needed to dig 10' to get a pound of it? The fact that the risk wasn't called in, so to speak -- that the worst case scenarios did not come to pass -- in no way diminishes what was risked. Beside, you have cherry-picked two cases where it is quite easy to construct a plausible a sounding (and factually false) "no risk" argument. HN routinely features entrepreneurship efforts where much was gained and much was won. Your main gripe appears to be that the risk-reward maxim is not describing a literal, linear relationship. Next up, the sun doesn't always set in the west! (provided certain map orientations, times of the year and fluctuations in magnetic north)
- borski 13y ago
  Risk is relative. For a broke college student to quit school, move across the country, have no (or little) income, all for an idea that they have no clue will work is a huge risk. In the same vein, someone quitting their job after having already committed to car payments, house payments, and alimony is also a huge risk.
  - foobarqux 13y ago
    He went to Philips-Exeter. He wasn't exactly broke.
mjburgess 13y ago
> Are you implying that the sort of people who assume the degree .... are merely "self-aggrandizing money-chasers?" Yes. That's very often the mentality, however you'd like to dress it up. There's a distinction between small-businesses that arent pre-occupied with growth and "success" and those which are. Sure, if you have your own bakery/etc. then you're probably doing that because youre interested in the craft of baking. The fact that you own the company is kinda incidental to your passion for a craft. I'm saying that these kind of people who build up multi-million/billion-dollar companies are basically interchangable money managers. You can take a telecoms business-genuis and put him in insurance, or manufacture, or anywhere: and people routinely do! Because the "skill" at that level is merely business as such. All I got from this article is "people should aspire to be successful in business", which I think is kinda stupid and dangerous. People should be passionate about, eg., giving people healthcare, creating amazing art or music, writing the best novels, finding out how the world works... that we have businesses and that they make money is something which is meant to facilitate our dreams not become them. Capitalism abstractly is not meant as an end in itself, but almost everywhere we look today it has become one. Growth, expansion, money, "success" for its own sake - not for the sake of beauty/truth/skill/knowledge/love/etc.
- colevscode 13y ago
  First, thanks for your refreshing perspective. I agree that the focus on wealth and growth isn't going to help us create interesting things as a society. However I do think there's a craft to building a business that can stand along side the craft of baking or the pursuit of art.

coliveira 13y ago

Agreed. Having a lot of money doesn't make you a special person. If you're rich and want to be celebrated, you should probably do something worthy of it rather than making money. Similarly, just because a company was sold for billions of dollars doesn't mean it has any importance - just remember the tech bubble.

melvinram 13y ago

Bullshit. What is crass is the perspective that Americans are unreflectingly capitalistic and pre-occupied with monetary success. Most business owners I know started their business because they saw a need for something and they wanted to deliver what was needed. Financial success is important because it allows their organization to continue functioning but it's hardly the top motivator for business owners I've spoken with. I will concede that there are a fair percentage of businesses that are unreflectingly capitalistic and pre-occupied with monetary success. However, to paint an entire nation with a broad stroke is ignorance at it's worst. It would be the same as saying "The Brits have terrible teeth" or "The French smell." It may be true for a percentage of people but is no way to address a body of people.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mjburgess 13y ago
You have this thing called "The American Dream" and you have an entire cultural history tied to self-motivation, entrepreneurship and "pushing the frontier"... Clearly every single american isnt subject to the same cultural pre-occupations, that's absurd. But there are only certain cultural phenomena possible in one place or another. A right-wing party in the UK could not even begin to use any of the ideas or rhetoric of the republican party - they'd be widespread revulsion. We dont sing our national anthem in the UK, we dont "pleg" anything, we dont consider our country "Exceptional" (hence American Exceptionalism). There hasnt been the suggestion that our prime minister is impotent for not interfering in Ukraine, at least, nothing like the inferiority-complex about Obama's lack of big-dickery. The idea that the west is culturally homogenous is "Bullshit". As compared to anywhere in europe, americans are vastly more market-oriented, mistrustful of government, approving of business success, etc. It is simply the case, insofar as I can see, that "business" isnt really a dream of any kind in europe. People dont grow up wanting to run/own/be in business in anyway, we dont really have an "explorer"/inventor dreams either. A considerable amount has been written by the european experience of america and an almost ubquitious theme in the accounts is "the feeling of unlimited possibility", an ostentatiousness and pre-occupation with wealth, etc.

rjtavares 13y ago

Beautiful... except it's not true. A quick google search through negocios.pt (probably the biggest Portuguese business newspaper): * Whatsapp: 41 results * Ono: 4 results Europeans love success stories as much as Americans, but we're too American-focused to notice our own success stories.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago
> Europeans love success stories as much as Americans, but we're too American-focused to notice our own success stories. this. Plus, to be fair, I have never heard of ONO, mostly cos no matter how much of a single European market we are, we are not a single European language, so we are not a single European news feed.
- _delirium 13y ago
  Yeah, I think in Denmark the media mainly notices American and Danish business, and not as much those from rest of Europe, unless they do something that really impacts people. People definitely care about what Danish businesses are doing. It's true that monetary success isn't the only measure people care about, e.g. Copenhagen Suborbitals, a nonprofit, gets a ton of startup-like tech press. But people also care about monetary success of Danish businesses. If ONO were a Danish company, it'd be on front pages of newspapers. But it's a Spanish telephone company nobody's heard of, so people aren't really interested. I think part of the WhatsApp news wasn't only the location but the "lightweight" aspect. There was a lot of, "wow a company sold for $16b just by making a phone app?!" By contrast people aren't surprised that classic capital-intensive, "heavyweight" infrastructure companies like telcos can be worth billions. Plus, nobody cares about infrastructure unless it's their own infrastructure. DONG Energy recently sold a minority stake to Goldman Sachs for $2 billion, which made huge news in Denmark, but did anyone else read about it?
  - omegant 13y ago
    The problem is that isn't making the news even in Spain..