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Actually that's an excellent point that I don't see mentioned enough. Profitability enough to offset opportunity cost - ie, how much you'd be making if you were

by sho 17y ago

Actually that's an excellent point that I don't see mentioned enough. Profitability enough to offset opportunity cost - ie, how much you'd be making if you were working in a "real job" - is indeed very hard to reach. Anyone can be "ramen profitable", defining that as say, under $1k a month. In fact, in actual good countries, you don't need to do anything at all to be able to eat. Australia will pay you $1k/month just to not be a criminal; in other countries it's higher. People can and do live off that their whole lives! Your average HN reader/startup founder is generally highly capable, multi-skilled, and, probably, a very valuable employee. To start a business capable of matching or exceeding their likely "normal" salary is indeed a far harder proposition than just making enough to eat.

angusgr 17y ago
>Australia will pay you $1k/month just to not be a criminal FWIW, this isn't strictly true, at least not in the last 10 years. Provided you are not disabled or retired, Australia will only really pay you ~$1k/month while you demonstrably look for work, or while you are an undergraduate student doing your first degree.
- dejb 17y ago
  There's a program called NEIS which would pay you that amount for a year while you try to start up a business. You had to submit a pretty serious application and attend a fair few weeks of some business course. They do have a few BS rules but you really just have to structure things the way they want. Did it about 13 years ago and helped me and a friend get a successful startup going. Come to think it of it it was a bit like a govt version of YC.
- sho 17y ago
  Well .. in theory yes. But in practise, people stay on it for years and years, just putting up with the hoops they make you jump through. Apparently they stop even pretending to care after a couple of years. I know this because a couple of friends of my brother have been on the dole for literally 10 years. There is nothing wrong with them, they just don't want to work and are apparently happy to live within the constraints of their $450/fortnight. Places like Broome and Byron Bay are full of such people. I used to resent people living off the system like this but now having lived in countries without it, I don't mind it anymore. In fact I now support a Norway-style basic income program. They're never going to work, that is completely obvious, just give them the damn money...
  - mr_luc 17y ago
    I just burst into raucous laughter, mostly from my own shock at realizing that that the idea is potentially practical. I've always thought of government assistance on a large scale as the kind of thing that will seriously damage a country if allowed to continue indefinitely -- by creating economic incentives not to work. [See: Sweden] I'm not sure it has to work that way. Between food technology and plateaus in first-world population growth, sustenance and covering could probably become as cheap as we are motivated to make them, for some definition of "sustenance" and "covering." I think it's obvious that society is better off if people work. But society is also better off if the people who work work harder, and only Ayn Rand fans walk around the office glaring at the dullards dragging society down. ;) In a way, those who really don't want to work are holding a gun to their head and demanding money. If we don't give it to them, then we'll have to get the blood out of our carpet, which will cost more than the few dollars they are asking for. If there were no risk of this, there would be no blood to clean up and thus no reason for social programs to exist. (Those who can't work are already bleeding, and the assistance is intended to keep their situation from worsening expensively). The people that don't want to work are doing something that I would find morally wrong. But I'm doing something that others doubtless would be troubled by: I work three months out of the year, saving my money, and then live off of that money for the rest of the year in a third-world country. I've had people angry at me for not spending all of my money in the US; others feel it's short-changing society to minimize the amount of work you do for money. Nonetheless, I'm at least paying with my own money, and society is net richer. From the standpoint of a person, I think that being a parasite is morally questionable. From the standpoint of society, however, maybe it makes sense to subsidize some level of determined laziness. I can vaguely imagine that under certain circumstances and with sufficient disincentives, such a thing could be a net win for a society. It seems societally risky, though. ;) Better to "officially" not support such a policy, so you can jettison it if its effects get out of hand.
plinkplonk 17y ago
"Profitability enough to offset opportunity cost" Interesting thought. One can make a (conceptual) ladder with "ramen profitable" being rung 1 and "opportunity profitable" being rung 2.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- JacobAldridge 17y ago
  I use some different terms (as a business coach, with my team's frameworks etc) but the point is valid. Getting "ramen profitable" helps give a business owner confidence, which we call "the first brick wall of business". The only way out of this in a positive, growth direction is to invest in the right things and get profitable - and that means genuinely profitable, not just paying yourself $12K/yr and ignoring the opportunity income. Failure to do so will eventually mean you run out of energy, even if you don't run out of money. Tipjoy, alas, seems to have done the latter before the former.
  - LogicHoleFlaw 17y ago
    The first may be disappointing but the second can be soul-crushing. I don't have the hubris to say I can judge which is worse.
webwright 17y ago
That IS an interesting point-- but if you're being rationale/calculating about this, I think you'd throw in the towel most of the time. As PG says, "Bad shit is coming". There is almost always a time where you say, "I think we're screwed," and a rationale person who rationally say that there was more opportunity elsewhere. FWIW, I don't think that's the case here.
wensing 17y ago
The point of ramen profitable isn't to eat, of course; it's to extend your runway indefinitely such that your odds of getting rich significantly increase.

by sho 17y ago

angusgr 17y ago

>Australia will pay you $1k/month just to not be a criminal FWIW, this isn't strictly true, at least not in the last 10 years. Provided you are not disabled or retired, Australia will only really pay you ~$1k/month while you demonstrably look for work, or while you are an undergraduate student doing your first degree.

dejb 17y ago
There's a program called NEIS which would pay you that amount for a year while you try to start up a business. You had to submit a pretty serious application and attend a fair few weeks of some business course. They do have a few BS rules but you really just have to structure things the way they want. Did it about 13 years ago and helped me and a friend get a successful startup going. Come to think it of it it was a bit like a govt version of YC.
sho 17y ago
Well .. in theory yes. But in practise, people stay on it for years and years, just putting up with the hoops they make you jump through. Apparently they stop even pretending to care after a couple of years. I know this because a couple of friends of my brother have been on the dole for literally 10 years. There is nothing wrong with them, they just don't want to work and are apparently happy to live within the constraints of their $450/fortnight. Places like Broome and Byron Bay are full of such people. I used to resent people living off the system like this but now having lived in countries without it, I don't mind it anymore. In fact I now support a Norway-style basic income program. They're never going to work, that is completely obvious, just give them the damn money...
- mr_luc 17y ago
  I just burst into raucous laughter, mostly from my own shock at realizing that that the idea is potentially practical. I've always thought of government assistance on a large scale as the kind of thing that will seriously damage a country if allowed to continue indefinitely -- by creating economic incentives not to work. [See: Sweden] I'm not sure it has to work that way. Between food technology and plateaus in first-world population growth, sustenance and covering could probably become as cheap as we are motivated to make them, for some definition of "sustenance" and "covering." I think it's obvious that society is better off if people work. But society is also better off if the people who work work harder, and only Ayn Rand fans walk around the office glaring at the dullards dragging society down. ;) In a way, those who really don't want to work are holding a gun to their head and demanding money. If we don't give it to them, then we'll have to get the blood out of our carpet, which will cost more than the few dollars they are asking for. If there were no risk of this, there would be no blood to clean up and thus no reason for social programs to exist. (Those who can't work are already bleeding, and the assistance is intended to keep their situation from worsening expensively). The people that don't want to work are doing something that I would find morally wrong. But I'm doing something that others doubtless would be troubled by: I work three months out of the year, saving my money, and then live off of that money for the rest of the year in a third-world country. I've had people angry at me for not spending all of my money in the US; others feel it's short-changing society to minimize the amount of work you do for money. Nonetheless, I'm at least paying with my own money, and society is net richer. From the standpoint of a person, I think that being a parasite is morally questionable. From the standpoint of society, however, maybe it makes sense to subsidize some level of determined laziness. I can vaguely imagine that under certain circumstances and with sufficient disincentives, such a thing could be a net win for a society. It seems societally risky, though. ;) Better to "officially" not support such a policy, so you can jettison it if its effects get out of hand.

plinkplonk 17y ago

"Profitability enough to offset opportunity cost" Interesting thought. One can make a (conceptual) ladder with "ramen profitable" being rung 1 and "opportunity profitable" being rung 2.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
JacobAldridge 17y ago
I use some different terms (as a business coach, with my team's frameworks etc) but the point is valid. Getting "ramen profitable" helps give a business owner confidence, which we call "the first brick wall of business". The only way out of this in a positive, growth direction is to invest in the right things and get profitable - and that means genuinely profitable, not just paying yourself $12K/yr and ignoring the opportunity income. Failure to do so will eventually mean you run out of energy, even if you don't run out of money. Tipjoy, alas, seems to have done the latter before the former.
- LogicHoleFlaw 17y ago
  The first may be disappointing but the second can be soul-crushing. I don't have the hubris to say I can judge which is worse.

webwright 17y ago

That IS an interesting point-- but if you're being rationale/calculating about this, I think you'd throw in the towel most of the time. As PG says, "Bad shit is coming". There is almost always a time where you say, "I think we're screwed," and a rationale person who rationally say that there was more opportunity elsewhere. FWIW, I don't think that's the case here.

wensing 17y ago

The point of ramen profitable isn't to eat, of course; it's to extend your runway indefinitely such that your odds of getting rich significantly increase.