[HN Gopher] ""Here's the number I used to win the lottery" -Entr...
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""Here's the number I used to win the lottery" -Entrepreneurs
giving advice"
Author : ohjeez
Score : 210 points
Date : 2023-03-04 20:28 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (twitter.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
| renewiltord wrote:
| I don't actually get why people come to a tech startup forum and
| post this. Like, I get why this guy posts on Twitter (his
| audience likes this stuff), but why come to HN and do this?
|
| I get it. /r/workreform, the managers are taking all the money
| and only make tps reports. But surely not every place needs to be
| like this.
| smohare wrote:
| [dead]
| flappyeagle wrote:
| Pretty disappointing to see this on HN. it's the weekend so
| quality is generally low but seriously this is what moderation is
| for. r/latestagecapitalism exists. Maybe take this trash over
| there.
| yuliyp wrote:
| Exactly. Taking the low probability play with a high payoff is,
| well, unlikely to succeed. But talking to people who had a high
| payoff will lead you to think that it is guaranteed to succeed.
| Survivorship bias exists.
| szundi wrote:
| As a successfully exited entrepreneur I can tell you that a lot
| of stuff I considered important in my success later I started to
| consider optional. Or more precisely: there are kind of
| combinations of strategies/behaviors that strengthen each other,
| and that's why it is 1) too complex to write recipies like i see
| here at the top, 2) different clientale, context and the industry
| itself makes different kind of these work more or less.
|
| Basically I think it is a bit arrogant to "know" it, but also it
| is quite pessimistic not to think and talk about these as
| successful serial-entrepreneurs have a lot to say that has merit.
| JadeNB wrote:
| Since the Twitter post itself uses straight quotes, where did
| those mangled quotes in the title come from?
| riskneutral wrote:
| That's funny
| jp57 wrote:
| I think the take home message is that successful entrepreneurs
| can tell you everything that's necessary for success and it still
| may not be sufficient.
|
| Some luck is still required.
| twawaaay wrote:
| I work with some pretty successful people who started their
| companies.
|
| I can tell you, the sentence is pure BS.
|
| Successful people may not know why exactly they got successful.
| Or they may not understand how much what they do contributed to
| the outcome. But they certainly tend to be sharp people putting a
| lot of hard, _HONEST_ work and doing a lot of things right.
|
| Even if you could say it was luck, think in terms of being the
| kind of person that creates a lot of chances for luck and
| prepares so that when they get lucky they do most out of it.
|
| It is a bit like a person who never bought a lottery ticket
| complaining the other one won. After playing it every day.
|
| Don't be salty. Try to understand what successful people do that
| makes them successful. Just because they can't explain it well
| doesn't mean there isn't wisdom to be had.
| angarg12 wrote:
| My general take on successful people giving advice is to ask
| yourself "how reproducible is this?". When the advice hinges on a
| unique set of circumstances that you can't reproduce, then they
| are likely giving you their lottery ticket. Otherwise you might
| want to listen more closely.
| nordsieck wrote:
| > My general take on successful people giving advice is to ask
| yourself "how reproducible is this?". When the advice hinges on
| a unique set of circumstances that you can't reproduce, then
| they are likely giving you their lottery ticket. Otherwise you
| might want to listen more closely.
|
| I think this is tricky - advice can be reproducible within a
| limited environment, but still be fragile. For example,
| extremely risky real estate investing can work within a market
| cycle. But if you try to bridge cycles without consolidation,
| you're going to be in for a bad time.
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| > When the advice hinges on a unique set of circumstances that
| you can't reproduce, then they are likely giving you their
| lottery ticket.
|
| People typically don't explain their success with "just after I
| opened the pickaxe shop, the gold rush started". Even if that
| is a major factor in their success, they will explain their
| success coming from other factors, like waking up at 5 am to
| listed to podcasts while running on the treadmill.
|
| (The advice that you should wake up at 5 am and listen to
| podcasts on the treadmill is reproducible, but timing the
| pickaxe shop opening with the gold rush is not reproducible.
| You hear one as the advice, not the other. This makes it
| difficult to follow your advice "When the advice hinges on a
| unique set of circumstances that you can't reproduce, then they
| are likely giving you their lottery ticket. Otherwise you might
| want to listen more closely.")
| adontz wrote:
| I think it's somewhat valid argument. Reduced to absurd for sure,
| but not absurd. It's not only about randomness, but also
| uniqueness of situation.
|
| You cannot become someone else. You cannot be where someone else
| was, when someone else was. And even if you can, it may not be
| the right place and the right time for you, as much as it was for
| someone else. Success cannot be copied.
|
| I really hate these "12 steps to becoming successful" recipes.
| It's well know phenomena that people tend to unrealistically
| attribute success to their personal traits and not luck. Success
| needs skills and knowledge, but also some luck. I doubt
| successful people really know why are they specifically are
| successful unlike hundreds of their competitors.
|
| This does not mean best practices do not exist. They do and they
| work. Only they work statistically. You may follow all best
| practices in the world and still fail miserably.
| jollofricepeas wrote:
| This is stupid.
|
| Any of us who have had at least two "successful" businesses will
| tell you that this quote is ridiculous.
|
| What's your ideal of being successful? If it's exiting at a
| billion, then sorry. But you can use a lot of this entrepreneur
| advice to find some level of success.
|
| The problem is that non-entrepreneur or first timers always try
| to skip the small stuff.
|
| 1. have a good team and hire right. you need just three roles:
| sales, operation and product.
|
| 2. TAM is real and will determine the size you can grow your
| business.
|
| 3. focus on sales first literally. as a founder you should do
| your own selling. take care of your customers!!!
|
| 4. don't be a crook
|
| 5. manage your money right; be cheap.
|
| 6. grow where you're planted. dig deep in areas you know or that
| your personal networks know.
|
| 7. be lucky - this is about timing and also putting yourself in a
| place to have information first or at least know the value of
| certain information first.
|
| 8. know you're going to get it wrong sometime and fail; when that
| happens take a small break and then spin up another
|
| I've bootstrapped two companies to success in my eyes which has
| changed me and my families life.
|
| The first was in the 2000s out of college (~$500k annual) it
| eventually petered out then in the 2010s (~$5m annual). Now I'm
| going to do another and I hope to create a $5-10m company all off
| the advice of other entrepreneurs.
|
| I've also failed miserably and had 5-7 business go under or never
| even really get off the ground.
| trimbo wrote:
| I agree that measure of success is relative and like the
| principles you list, but your reply lands reinforcing the point
| of the tweet.
|
| Does 2 out of 9 successful startups mean your tenets listed
| here will lead to your level of success 22% of the time? Or do
| they only lead to success 0.022% of the time and you're the 1
| out of 5000? How do you know?
|
| It's not just this topic, it's a problem with general advice
| humans give to other humans without applying any specific
| context.
| dennis_jeeves1 wrote:
| You are rightfully being pilloried. At age 40+ you really need
| to have more wisdom.
| srpinto wrote:
| You won the lottery in the sense that you went to college, live
| in a well-off english speaking country and as such, can burn
| through 5-7 failures. I'm sure you're smart and hard working,
| and I don't believe in shaming gringos as if being born rich
| (e.g. having access to a toilet and clean water) was their own
| fault. You deserve to be happy with what you have. But will
| never get to be preachy about it without some one calling you
| out, unless you surround yourself with people with the same
| biases.
| vanviegen wrote:
| You're making a lot of assumptions.
| gnulinux wrote:
| No they're not. _Just_ the self-admitted fact that they
| could afford to fail 5-7 times creating a business shows
| that they had more social and financial safety net than an
| average American. Most Americans can 't just create a
| business, fail, and repeat it 4-6 more times.
| itronitron wrote:
| Most gringos can not burn through a single failure, let alone
| 5-7. This helps to explain why the US Military is as large as
| it is...
| asah wrote:
| +1. I have 3 IPOs and numerous acquisitions, across multiple
| industries. It's still 50/50 but that's way better than the
| long odds most people face.
|
| Also agree that it depends on your goals! I've done venture
| capital deals, self funded deals ("lifestyle"), non-profit &
| political campaigns, etc - and different stages and goals.
|
| Obviously YMMV: I know people who legit get lucky and then
| their luck runs out, and I know smart guys who do everything
| right and can't catch a break.
|
| It's also fun to angel invest. Get to see dozens more companies
| from (a bit) of the inside.
| designium wrote:
| What's TAM?
| sveme wrote:
| Total Addressable Market.
| maxilevi wrote:
| Total addressable market
| epgui wrote:
| Michael Sandel's "meritocracy trap", exhibit A.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Luck is involved in everything because whatever you have
| decided, it's not a sure shot of winning. The decision to make
| the product a certain way for example, or certain timing,
| marketing spend etc and all of them matter
| d23 wrote:
| > 7. be lucky
| gnulinux wrote:
| What a heartbreaking comment to read:
|
| > Any of us who have had at least two "successful" businesses
| will tell you that this quote is ridiculous.
|
| > I've also failed miserably and had 5-7 business go under or
| never even really get off the ground.
|
| This means that you incurred (2+) / ((2+) + (5-7)) chance of
| creating a successful business. This is in the spirit of the
| OP. Creating a business may involve some skill, but ultimately
| it's just a lottery. Sometimes you win only because you're
| lucky. Or something you lose only because you're unlucky. I
| apologize but I truly do think giving advise like this can be
| dangerous. Not everyone is as privileged and maybe a single
| failure can put them in life-long debt, or financial trouble,
| or homelessness.
| altdataseller wrote:
| What was the revenue of the 2nd bootstrapped success?
| mkl wrote:
| I think they mean it was $5 million. The same sentence seems
| to be talking about both of them, but would be clearer broken
| into two before "then".
|
| I'm interpreting it as "The first was in the 2000s out of
| college (~$500k annual); it eventually petered out. Then [the
| second was] in the 2010s (~$5m annual)."
| JamesBarney wrote:
| Another lesson is
|
| 9. If when you pitch your original idea to potential customers,
| if they're not over the moon about it your destined for
| failure.
| nullsense wrote:
| >7. be lucky
|
| You have to make absolute certain that you remember to do this
| step and to do it correctly, as well as at the right time, or
| it won't work.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Yeah that is why he said it is a bit of a lottery. 2 of 9 seems
| like a pretty solid success rate but that means even you
| (someone who has a knack for it) would need 4 solid efforts to
| have good odds at getting a winner. 4 failed attempts is going
| to burn most people out emotionally if not financially.
|
| Was your first successful business one of your first ones? What
| if it had taken you until your 6th try to get a winner? Would
| you have stuck it out?
| layer8 wrote:
| The tweet is a hyperbole, but it points at the important role
| of luck and survivorship bias.
|
| It is clear that given the dimensions of skill and luck, the
| most success will come from having both. If you lack either
| skill or luck, you will automatically be at a disadvantage
| compared to those who have both. This implies that the most
| prominent success stories are the result of luck as much as of
| anything else. However that isn't very often mentioned in those
| stories.
| [deleted]
| rhaway84773 wrote:
| While I don't agree with the premise of the tweet, having
| created 2 successful businesses doesn't necessarily mean that
| it wasn't all luck, because you're missing the fact that the
| number of entrepreneurs, who would be the equivalent of the
| lottery contestants, is highly limited.
|
| If you had a daily lottery but only 1000 people were able to
| enter it, by year 5 nearly everyone would have won the lottery
| at least twice.
| oxfordmale wrote:
| You can do all of this and still fail. Many well-run start-ups
| fail because of market conditions. There is a lot of luck
| involved.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Honestly it just looks to me like the lottery you won is not
| "having a successful business", but "having the luxury and
| connections to try and fail 5-7 times with one success"
|
| Most people cannot afford to recover from failing once.
| loudandskittish wrote:
| Yeah, this is one of the things that drives me nuts about
| these "inspirational" stories where some
| millionaire/billionaire talks proudly about how their first
| business failed, their car was repo'd, bank foreclosed on
| them, etc... but I've never heard one talk about what they
| did between that and the successful business. Where did they
| sleep? How did they afford food?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Varies but mostly you go get a job for a while.
| moralestapia wrote:
| The secret is that sometimes you just have to ... _sigh_
| ... work.
| dieselgate wrote:
| Indeed. I'm not an entrepreneur or anything but liken it
| a bit to having a good initial poker hand - you can win
| with one good card but it is helpful and gives one more
| options to have two good cards.
|
| So in the context of bootstrapping a company it's helpful
| to have a legit fallback (way to suck it up and find an
| OK job) when things don't pan out.
|
| Edit: maybe this is obvious for CS/software folks but the
| extracurricular work I'm involved with is not exactly
| tech related, though my day job is coding
| SamReidHughes wrote:
| > Where did they sleep?
|
| Maybe at least one of their parents had a _sofa_.
|
| The trick is to have parents who aren't homeless.
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Having a strong support group in your life is probably
| one of the most important things to success.
|
| Few paths go straight from a to b without a misstep.
| starkparker wrote:
| Here's how I fare on that. Each checked box is something
| I have.
|
| [X] "The trick is to have parents",
|
| [ ] who are alive,
|
| [ ] "who aren't homeless",
|
| [ ] who have housing that is safe and functional,
|
| [ ] who have room for you not already occupied by other
| family members in greater need,
|
| [ ] who "had a sofa",
|
| [ ] or if they're dead, at least left you with enough
| money as an equivalent
| bboygravity wrote:
| They do talk about that.
|
| Elon Musk cleaned out manure tanks for a while in Canada if
| I'm not mistaking. There are some interviews where he talks
| about this (and showering at the gym across the street and
| sleeping under a desk and having no money) in quite some
| detail.
| [deleted]
| captainlol wrote:
| If you believe this, you'll believe anything. This site
| is a dumpster-fire of billionaire simping rubes. An
| absolute Dunning-Kruger hall of mirrors.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| Doesn't he come from a South-African diamond family or
| something?
| logisticpeach wrote:
| He also had substantially wealthy parents if I'm not
| mistaken. Same with Gates and others. This is the
| ultimate safety net.
|
| It's easier to take risks when you have an out when it
| all goes _really_ wrong. Doubt he 'd still be cleaning
| manure today if he hadn't had a success...
| michaelmrose wrote:
| His family was rich he is as self made as Trump.
| noduerme wrote:
| That sort of depends whether they cost a lot of money to
| start or just cost time (e.g. software written on the
| weekends).
| SamReidHughes wrote:
| What website do you think you're on? Anybody who is a
| competent software developer can.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| Play the cards you're awake
|
| For every trust funder with a garage but in Atherton, there
| are 10 other trust funder with substance abuse problems doing
| nothing with their life
| encoderer wrote:
| This is a little pessimistic.
|
| Just take smaller risks. I built my first business over
| nights and weekends and didn't quit my day job for _5 years._
|
| If you want something bad enough you just have to take the
| chance.
| bsder wrote:
| You are precisely demonstrating the original post, no?
|
| You had 2 of 9 businesses succeed. You are demonstrating
| roughly 1:5 odds of rolling a successful business.
|
| With 1:5 odds if we reroll _you_ doing 10 businesses over and
| over, 10% of you _never succeed_. About 1 /3 of you win once,
| 1/3 of you win twice, and 20% of you win 3 times.
|
| The versions of you that won 3 times are not any different than
| the versions of you who won never. Any advice you give is
| neither more accurate because a version of you won 3 times nor
| less accurate because a version of you won never.
| kjksf wrote:
| Those are not the odds, just his success rate.
|
| If you do everything badly (i.e. come up with bad business
| ides, cannot implement even those bad ideas, are bad at
| hiring, managing money, paying taxes etc.) then your success
| rate will be 0%, not 20%.
|
| The issue here isn't about how hard starting a business is.
| It's obviously hard enough that many (most?) people who try
| will fail.
|
| The issue is: can you do things better? Is doing things
| better lead to higher probability of success?
|
| The "it's all luck" people say that you can't. There is no
| better or worse way. It's just luck. Therefore any advice is
| useless.
|
| The opposite point of view is: yes. There are better and
| worse ways of doing things. And if you know what they are
| then you can tell other people. And that advice will help
| them to achieve success. But not guarantee.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| I think one of the main problems is that for a lot of
| people, starting a business basically has a 0% chance of
| success.
|
| Some people may be able to increase their chances, but
| maybe not everyone.
| fountainofage wrote:
| "but not guarantee" is almost the entire point of what
| folks are pointing out and what the OP meant - you could do
| literally everything perfect and still it's VERY likely you
| will fail.
| fsckboy wrote:
| > _"Here 's the number I used to win the lottery"_ -
| Entrepreneurs giving advice
|
| this is a funny quip, and it is completely recognizable as a
| quip.
|
| Feeling the need to defend entrepreneurs against this quip is a
| defect in you. Feeling the need to analyze what %age of the time
| this quip would need to be true in order for it to be acceptable
| marks you as a complete nerd who misses the forest for the trees.
| Wanting to burden this quip with extra words so as to make it
| quantifiably good advice is misunderstanding what makes something
| funny.
|
| have a laugh, go on about your day, this quip was never meant to
| be flypaper for humorless gadflies.
| docandrew wrote:
| There's definitely some truth to it, and it's exposing
| humorless gadflies on both sides - those who feel the need to
| argue against it to justify their success, and those who can
| use it to feel better about their lack of success.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| Pretty clear to me after meeting a number of very successful
| people in NYC/SF that some people "just have it". Meaning, they
| can identify opportunities that have a high probability of
| success and execute on those opportunities. There are absolutely
| personality types/genetic backgrounds where stumbling into 100M
| based on thinking of an idea is a real thing.
|
| Also, if someone went to a school like Stanford, its common for
| them to raise 5M in funding with nothing. From there, they can
| try for a few years with a decent chance at coming up with
| something, raising more money, pulling money off the table in
| round B, and then basically getting rich with no innovation at
| all. There are all these payoffs that exist from being in a
| certain class of prestige
| docandrew wrote:
| I started a business and realized very quickly that there are
| people who are good at sales and business development, and I'm
| not one of them.
|
| The overall experience was still very worthwhile - what I
| learned about that side of things made me a better engineer,
| and I have a newfound respect for people who are good at the
| business side of things.
|
| It would be easy for me to chalk it up to bad luck or not
| having the right privilege or whatever, but that just would be
| sour grapes.
|
| As with everything in life, hard work can make up for lesser
| talent or bad luck, great talent can make up for a lack of
| effort, and being lucky is sometimes better than either.
| oxfordmale wrote:
| Your first sentence is selection bias. Of course, successful
| people look like they "just have it". Once you have succeeded,
| convincing investors to fund another opportunity is far easier.
| The real question is how to succeed in the first place.
|
| Having the right connections helps in getting funding. If you
| went to Stanford, your network would have many connections that
| are able to invest 5M. If you are raised in the slums, you are
| far less likely to have these connections, regardless of your
| genetic background or personality.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| I've bootstrapped successfully three times, and have seen it
| from the other side.
|
| Some people just don't get it. They have ideas that are so
| bad someone who "gets it" wouldn't even conceive of it as a
| possibility - the way that someone with Asperger's does
| unimaginably dumb things in social situations.
|
| Unlike Asperger's, though, people that think this way aren't
| a tiny minority with a diagnosed disorder but ~70% of the
| population.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| Yeah, it's really insane the number of bad ideas people try
| to make work.
|
| All of the successful startups I've seen sounded like they
| could be successful. And every idea I've heard that sounded
| like it wouldn't be successful hasn't been.
|
| Having a good business plan is no guarantee of success, but
| having a bad one will guarantee failure.
| mattbuilds wrote:
| Any chance you could go a little more in-depth with what
| you mean? Why are the ideas so bad and what can someone who
| gets it recognize in them? Just curious.
| talentedcoin wrote:
| Sorry, but I don't think you know anything about "genetic
| background" if you think it correlates with making money.
| callmetom wrote:
| [dead]
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| I'm sorry you believe the propaganda that states otherwise.
| Its a radical opinion to believe "talent" doesnt exist.
| dmitriid wrote:
| Having disposable income and connections means much much
| more than genetics.
|
| This comment has the relevant quote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35024721
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| Of course it does, the second paragraph in my original
| response states just that. This doesnt negate the fact
| that some people are exponentially better at business
| than others. Its the same in math, chess, basketball,
| football, writing, and every other human endeavor
| bsder wrote:
| > This doesnt negate the fact that some people are
| exponentially better at business than others. Its the
| same in math, chess, basketball, football, writing, and
| every other human endeavor
|
| Citing chess directly contradicts your thesis about
| "innate talent".
|
| In chess, the Polgar sisters are proof that training is
| the key and not genetics. The increasing existence of
| younger and younger chess grandmasters distributed around
| the world also shows that it's more about training than
| "innate talent".
|
| Football and basketball do have a "innate talent"
| component--at the highest levels the competitors are
| genetic freaks.
|
| However, any human endeavor not relying on pure
| physicality does not have "innate talent" limitations.
| "Talent" is almost always correlated to "early training"
| and "hard work".
| docandrew wrote:
| Couldn't it be both?
| dmitriid wrote:
| The number of people who can attribute their
| exceptionalism to genetics is minuscule compared to
| people who are just wealthy and connected.
|
| Even those that you assume "just have it" most likely
| just have enough means and connections to try and fail
| and eventually succeed than most of us.
| delegate wrote:
| Consider that luck starts at birth. The genes you get, the
| health, the level of energy, stubbornness, personality, who you
| meet in life, etc .. these are all dice rolls.
|
| It does take skill to build something, but having the ability to
| learn that skill is a 'chance', which is in the realm of luck.
|
| Neither being lucky nor skilled is enough for success, it's the
| combination of both. And here I leave 'success' as loosely
| defined.
|
| You can't get lucky at the lottery unless you participate in it.
|
| Skill is due to luck and subsequent luck in some area is due to
| skill.
|
| I just mentioned above - luck comes first, skill is the ability
| to get lucky at something.
| Varqu wrote:
| Since when do we consider single viral Tweets to be worth HN main
| page?
| ecommerceguy wrote:
| Got to play the lottery to win it.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| If someone say there is no luck involved they are saying they
| every position they take is 100% winning. 100% success rate in
| all decisions, sort of like a risk free investment, really no
| such thing.
|
| The people you hire, there is no sure thing they can build it
| properly. The marketing effort, no sure shot. Absolutely every
| decision you make involves some luck
| furyofantares wrote:
| Entrepreneurs make tons of decisions and lots of creative work
| that meaningfully impact their chances of success.
|
| Maybe the chances are still quite low if you do everything really
| well, and maybe an entrepreneur giving advice is likely to
| massively overestimate that, driving the sentiment behind this
| tweet. But they're certainly higher than if you do everything
| really poorly.
| sva_ wrote:
| Cynical take, but probably popular in today's social media. I
| don't think it's right to say building a company is only based on
| random chance. It clearly also involves at least some skill.
| parpfish wrote:
| Is the OP trying to make a point about success being random or
| about how you shouldn't mindlessly copying somebody else's path
| to success?
| seb1204 wrote:
| Yes indeed, there are some more nuanced takes on it in this
| thread that I thought were good. I feel in corporate land this
| translates to the Peter principle in some cases where the
| manager made a random decision that turned out great.
| enkid wrote:
| Saying it's only based on luck is clearly wrong. Saying no luck
| is involved is clearly wrong.
| d23 wrote:
| Thank you. How is this so hard to grasp?
| dvt wrote:
| Absolute cope in the twitter comments, and it's weird seeing this
| on HN, which (at least historically) was a pretty entrepreneur-
| friendly forum. Yes, we get it, Zuck and Gates and Jobs were
| "lucky." But that doesn't mean starting a business is like going
| to the race track, and this extreme oversimplification reminds me
| of equally-reductive positions (solipsism, nihilism, etc.) where
| zero knowledge is imparted, and therefore zero knowledge is
| gained.
| SahAssar wrote:
| I think the point is more that most people don't know why they
| succeeded or fail.
| superkuh wrote:
| The most predictive reason for failure or success is the
| commonly referenced
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15659076
|
| >Entrepreneurship is like one of those carnival games where
| you throw darts or something.
|
| >Middle class kids can afford one throw. Most miss. A few hit
| the target and get a small prize. A very few hit the center
| bullseye and get a bigger prize. Rags to riches! The American
| Dream lives on.
|
| >Rich kids can afford many throws. If they want to, they can
| try over and over and over again until they hit something and
| feel good about themselves. Some keep going until they hit
| the center bullseye, then they give speeches or write blog
| posts about "meritocracy" and the salutary effects of hard
| work.
|
| >Poor kids aren't visiting the carnival. They're the ones
| working it.
| dvt wrote:
| Imo, this is completely false in the realm of software
| where anyone can launch a new app/project basically every
| other weekend and feel out what sticks & has traction.
| [deleted]
| thfuran wrote:
| Did you know that some people spend their weekend working
| to make rent rather than launching apps that they hope
| might work?
| dvt wrote:
| Of course, but we're not talking about people in poverty,
| or that are homeless, etc. You're just bringing up a
| weird red herring that's orthogonal to my point--namely,
| that the bar is extremely accessible (esp. compared to
| ventures prior to the advent of computers).
| giantrobot wrote:
| More people than just those below the poverty line work
| on weekends. Launching an app over a weekend is easy...if
| you've got all of the required skills _a priori_ and the
| leisure time available to do so. Launching an app over
| the weekend isn 't a viable option for people lacking
| either of those two components no matter their distance
| from the poverty line.
| thfuran wrote:
| We aren't? Then next time you mean something other than
| "completely false", I'd recommend steering clear of the
| phrase "completely false".
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| If your day job doesn't pay enough to make rent, you
| should move to another city.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| Seriously?
|
| The thing about not being able to make rent is that other
| things suffer -- like being able to move to another city
| or, you know, eating.
| renewiltord wrote:
| This does not sound believable. Even assuming a 2 h / day
| commute each way, this person is working 56 h weeks with
| 28 h of commute? Introduce me to this poor person doing
| this (if they're within 50 mi of 94103) and if they have
| 2800 h of wages to show for last year, I will pay $1k
| just to talk to them for 2 h in a place of their
| convenience at a time of their convenience.
|
| I think it's much more likely that people who are too
| poor to participate cannot participate in gainful labour
| in a predictable fashion, i.e. their employment is
| sporadic, or shifts are unpredictable, or they are
| seasonal labour. i.e. they are not time-constrained, they
| are employment-constrained.
| dmitriid wrote:
| That _anyone_ at the very least needs access to a
| smartphone, powerful-enough computer, and internet.
|
| 18% of households in the US say they can't afford home
| internet service: https://ntia.gov/blog/2022/switched-
| why-are-one-five-us-hous...
| dvt wrote:
| Not sure what this has to do with anything; my point was
| just that the bar is much more accessible, generally
| speaking, than it was prior to software being a thing. It
| wasn't some grand thesis about the affordability of
| internet or larger social problems (housing, poverty,
| etc.).
|
| Seems like you're just trying to grandstand.
| toss1 wrote:
| Plus, the fact that having the winning lottery ticket numbers
| being your parents' telephone number, means that you can fail
| quietly until you succeed, then everyone sees the success.
|
| Corollary: Nearly every "overnight success" happens
| 'overnight', sure. But the 'overnight' period is after
| decades of slogging it out in the trenches of obscurity. The
| ability to freely take risks with life with high potential
| payoffs is partly attitude, and partly being able to get up
| on the high wire with a net underneath, so you can try again
| until you succeed. Many end up succeeding without really
| knowing why, or noticing that they had the net to keep trying
| until they did.
| jiveturkey wrote:
| I'm going to disagree; it is like going to the race track (I
| assume you mean horses).
|
| You might just be lucky, period, and still succeed. (Lightning
| does strike. ha, great name for a horse.)
|
| But your chances are FAR better if you are well prepared, know
| the stats, know the jockeys, have inside info on what a horse
| has been fed, maybe even that morning, and so on. You might be
| able to rig things in your favor via inside connections.
|
| But even with all your "skills" lined up, you still need luck
| and lots of it.
|
| I think what I'm taking issue with is your statement that
| winning at the race track is _mere_ luck. No, like being a
| successful entrepeneur, it also requires lots of preparation.
|
| Twitter by its nature is reductive. The position of the author
| here should really be read as: I know the other 5 lotto
| numbers. (baseline for a chance at success.) Now here is the
| 6th number, the random and lucky part that I'm taking credit
| for and that won't be reproducible by you.
| chmod600 wrote:
| "But your chances are FAR better if you are well prepared,
| know the stats..."
|
| Gambling is zero sum.
|
| Businesses, even failed ones, generally do some positive
| things along the way.
|
| Learning to do things that are useful and getting paid for
| them is really different from learning some useless
| information that happens to help you win at the expense of
| others.
| adw wrote:
| It really isn't, but not in the way you think. Starting a
| business is a _demonstrably_ worse idea than informed gambling.
|
| Winning at horses is much lower variance, is easier to learn,
| and depends enormously less on accidents of upbringing and
| social class. VC has historically been a fallback for people
| who couldn't hack it in proper finance, and while that's a
| little unfair, it's only a little unfair.
| adw wrote:
| (Note that "winning at horses" is not significantly different
| from "winning at hedge funds".)
| hash872 wrote:
| Agreed. If Jeff Bezos started over in a non-tech industry, with
| no money or previous connections, is the author arguing that
| his chances at being successful in say a garden supply or waste
| management company the same as any other person? That seems
| absurd.
|
| If entrepreneurs have no useful advice then there's no right or
| wrong way to structure or run a company, it's all random and
| any method will do. Just generalizing from other fields of
| study we know this isn't true anywhere else, so why would it be
| true for running a business?
| wnevets wrote:
| You also have those who were born on third base going through
| life convinced they hit a triple telling everyone else why
| they're special.
| technothrasher wrote:
| I only ever found one foolproof system to win the lottery, and it
| allowed me to win on every single ticket. I owned a retail store
| that sold lottery tickets. The retailer gets a small commission
| on every sale, and one on any ticket cashed in at the store.
| pdq wrote:
| This is basically the same as the VC fund model. They get
| annual carry (ie percentage) on every fund, and then get a
| percentage of the gains for every exit.
|
| Often this is "two and twenty" (aka 2% annual carry, plus 20%
| of the gains). Pretty awesome skimming.
| meetingthrower wrote:
| Carry is the 20 (carried interest) and 2 is the management
| fee.
| dingusdew wrote:
| [dead]
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| I don't know why the "you didn't build that, you just got
| lucky/born wealthy/born in the US/born with good connections"
| argument has picked up recently. Just a lot of people wanting to
| justify why they're not also wealthy business owners? Most
| without ever trying in the first place?
|
| Every idea for a business isn't equal. A good idea, combined with
| good leadership, and good execution, will 'beat the odds' the
| majority of the time.
|
| Honestly, that this is all there is to the post, and that it was
| a tweet, just adds to the rediculous of the statement. Just
| spewing unfounded opinions with no evidence onto a platform that
| encourages short easily digestible posts.
| psvv wrote:
| I'm surprised I don't see a reference yet to Darius Kazemi's
| iconic 2014[1] talk, which is basically riffing on this joke for
| 10 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_F9jxsfGCw
|
| A key takeaway I've kept with me this whole time is the idea of
| there being two kinds of creative advice: (1) how to buy more
| lottery tickets, and (2) how to win the lottery. The former is
| useful, the latter not so much.
|
| [1] Wait, 9 years ago? That can't be right.
| didntreadarticl wrote:
| Darius Kazemi - "How I Won the Lottery" - a talk at XOXO Festival
| (2014)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_F9jxsfGCw
|
| brutally hilarious
| pilarphosol wrote:
| It works first and second order.
|
| First order, every number is equally (un)likely and there is no
| harm in choosing yesterday's number, because it is nevertheless
| no more unlikely today than any other.
|
| Second order, you want to avoid split pots, so doing what others
| are doing reduces EV... your number should be as random as you
| can make it... and any lottery that actually produced the same
| numbers twice in a short period of time would be subject to
| increased scrutiny, which must also be factored in (you might get
| no prize if it is discovered, even if the conclusion were untrue,
| that the lottery were rigged) so yesterday's numbers actually are
| objectively bad choices.
|
| Either way, the metaphor stands quite well.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Bad analogy. Founding a startup is not entirely a gamble. There
| _are_ some things you can do to increase your chances of success.
|
| However, that doesn't mean you should do everything a successful
| startup founder mentions in their retrospectives. Founding a
| successful startup does not equate to having a flawless
| perspective into what caused your success. It's the job of VC
| firms to study startups and figure out what works and what
| doesn't, not founders.
| paxys wrote:
| "VCs giving advice" would be a better fit
| labrador wrote:
| I'm going to comment in a different direction: As someone who
| achieved great success at a young age (under 30) it is almost
| impossible for it not to go your head, mostly because everyone
| treats you like you are a genius. Unfortunately for me, I lived
| the adage that "pride goeth before the fall"
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