[HN Gopher] All it takes is for one to work out
___________________________________________________________________
All it takes is for one to work out
Author : herbertl
Score : 744 points
Date : 2025-11-29 20:22 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (alearningaday.blog)
(TXT) w3m dump (alearningaday.blog)
| mhog_hn wrote:
| On the one hand it is a wholesome article. On the other hand - so
| much wasted potential of people squeezing out the last bits when
| competing. Nash equilibria can suck
| hugodan wrote:
| That's an aggressive problematic gambler mentality.
| xandrius wrote:
| When the outcome is positive, I see nothing wrong. Especially
| if you lose basically nothing in trying.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Your time, energy, etc are not nothing. If you think like
| that, you have already lost and are not making optimal
| decisions.
| xandrius wrote:
| That counter-argument is only valid if you actually had
| other things to do.
|
| If the alternative to send to yet another university
| application is to start a new match of CoD then it wasn't a
| loss.
| moleperson wrote:
| The way I read this is that there are many "games" in life
| (applying for schools, jobs, dating, etc) where the odds of
| "winning" each instance are not in your favor, but you only
| need to win once to win overall. If you treat every absence
| of a positive outcome as a failure, then you're inevitably
| going to lose hope and give up.
|
| This is in contrast to gambling where you actually _do_
| need to win more often than not to win overall.
| programjames wrote:
| Seems like a momumental waste of energy being pushed as
| "hustling". Applying to college should be cooperative
| between you and the admissions office: asking, are we a
| good fit? Applying in the hope they mess up and admit you
| when they're really better off rejecting you is so
| antisocial.
|
| Admissions are sort-of Pareto distributed, so most people
| admitted were on the edge of being rejected. Since there
| is a bit of noise in the process, this is why any one
| individual applying to 10x as many places of a similar
| tier will be more likely to get into one. But then when
| everyone does it, no one is more or less likely to get in
| except those that are actually cooperating with the
| admissions office. You're burning down the commons for a
| fleeting bit of warmth. Might I suggest installing a
| furnace in your house instead?
| ashu1461 wrote:
| Is it ? In gambling your odds are fixed, but in real life,
| wouldn't you get better at solving problems with each iteration
| ?
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| Depends - are you meaningfully trying to improve or do you
| keep doing the same thing over and over not getting it?
| losvedir wrote:
| No it's not. Gambler's fallacy is "I just flipped tails so
| heads is more likely now". I read this article as "heads has a
| 50% chance of coming up so I'll get one eventually" (which is
| true - law of large numbers).
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| I think none of those blanket statements here work.
|
| Really it's just odds of finding success vs effort / time
| spent. And whether that's worth it.
|
| Any of the blanket statements could be true depending on what
| the exact odds are.
|
| There could be near 0% chance of finding success and it would
| be better idea to rethink and spend time elsewhere, or yes,
| there's 10% chance of finding success and it's significant
| enough that trying 20 times is enough.
|
| If we are talking about e.g. finding a house, if you are not
| finding any it could very well be that your expectations vs
| budget is unlikely to find anything and you have to
| reconsider strategy.
|
| Someone could be repeatedly trying to find work, and thinking
| it's just a matter of time, but really time would be better
| spent on improving their strategy, resume, or other means.
|
| These statements to me seem like motivational non-sense which
| misrepresent how real world works or what the patterns really
| are like. At best they just give someone a false
| understanding of how the world works, at worst they make
| someone spend all their time in the wrong direction.
| Animats wrote:
| Indeed. "Just one more roll of the dice and I'll be ahead."
|
| Worse, this guy isn't trying to get a job. He's just trying to
| get into grad school. Which is no longer a guarantee of a good
| career, but may be a guarantee of a big debt. Remember that "I
| did everything right" post on HN a few weeks ago? CS degree
| from a good school, but nobody wants junior CS people any more.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| The difference is that if I apply for 10 jobs at once or put a
| bid in for 10 houses hoping one will succeed, I've lost nothing
| for trying 10 times.
|
| If I gamble and try 10 times and win once - I have probably
| lost money.
|
| Even if I interview 10 times and fail 9, I've learned something
| from each interview and I've gotten better. That's also not
| true from rolling dice.
| programjames wrote:
| You lost something when every other person started doing the
| same thing. Now you have to write or review ten applications
| instead of one. Now you're going to get paid less because it
| cost $20k to hire you instead of $2k. Now your company is
| going to be filled with like-minded people, "hustlers", who
| do not know how to improve things themselves, just spray and
| pray until someone mistakenly rewards them.
| maest wrote:
| Related: You should expect to keep getting "no"s until you get a
| yes. That means, getting a "no" is actually normal, it's not
| failing.
| energy123 wrote:
| Each "no" is a signal that you're still trying which puts you
| above many people whose ego can't handle hearing that word so
| they settle and turn to bitterness.
| prophesi wrote:
| Reminds me of Veritasium's recent video[0] on power law
| distributions.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBluLfX2F_k
| mncharity wrote:
| "[O]ne outlier can dominate the average"; "We're used to living
| in this world of normal distributions and you act a certain
| way, but as soon as you switch to this realm that is governed
| by a power law, you need to start acting vastly different. It
| really pays to know what kind of world or what kind of game you
| are playing."
| legerdemain wrote:
| You've been trying for a long time.
|
| What do you do if the job that makes you an offer doesn't excite
| you? What if the house that feels like home needs more repairs
| than you can afford? What if the program that accepts you has
| crappy funding? What if the person who chooses you has red flags?
|
| Do you say "screw it," cross your fingers, and walk through the
| door that kind of sucks? Or do you keep looking as long as your
| resources last you?
| bgoated01 wrote:
| Right. All it takes is for one to work out, if you have several
| suitable options. If some of the options are only vaguely
| suitable, or it comes to light through the process that some of
| them are not suitable at all, then it takes more than just one
| working out. That's what I was thinking while reading this.
| GMoromisato wrote:
| Every situation is different, and none of us can reliably
| predict the future. Sometimes dealing with a bad job until you
| get a better one is the right move. Sometimes it's the wrong
| move.
|
| Specifics, about the job and yourself, matter. If you feel like
| sharing, this is a pretty good community with good instincts.
|
| The magic in "all it takes is for one to work out" is in the
| strength it gives you to keep trying. Trying something that
| might fail is hard, even when we know that trying is the right
| thing to do.
| legerdemain wrote:
| My point is that, at least anecdotally, certainty is rare.
| Most of the time, for most people, the experience is less
| "yes!" and more "I guess."
|
| More widely applicable advice would be how to deal with
| compromise, not how to hold out for "the right one."
| GMoromisato wrote:
| There is no certainty, not about the future at least. In my
| experience, being able to face uncertainty without despair
| is one of the most important skills to have.
|
| The interesting thing about "all it takes is for one to
| work out" is that it helps you face uncertainty. No matter
| how many times you've tried, you maintain the faith that
| the next time might succeed.
|
| And it is all about faith, which is probably why it is so
| hard for us analytic/logic-driven people to adopt. But the
| opposite of faith isn't knowledge--it's nihilism. If the
| universe is an uncaring and even hostile place, and if
| there are no guarantees that everything will work out, and
| if the only certainty is eventual death, then why even
| bother, right? Nihilism is seductive because it is the
| philosophy most compatible with reality. It is what you're
| left with after entering the Total Perspective Vortex.
|
| The only antidote to nihilism is belief. Belief that things
| will work out. That it's worth fighting for things, even if
| we often lose. That striving to be the person we want to be
| is worth something.
|
| I know I've drifted far from your original point about how
| to deal with compromise. Again, I feel the answer depends
| on the circumstances. But I think a general answer is to
| decide what "the right one" means for you and nurture the
| belief that you will get there eventually. Once you know
| where you want to be and have the conviction that you will
| get there, everything else is simple.
|
| Simple, but not easy. Maybe you've compromised for your
| current job. What will it take to get "the right one"? Is
| it more skills? Is it connections? Is it money? Is it
| courage? Maybe you don't know--that's okay. What's the next
| job that will get you closer to your goal? What do you need
| to get that job?
|
| I guarantee that one of the things you need to do is simply
| try. Try to apply for a new job; try to learn a new skill;
| try to make a new professional connection.
|
| That's when you remember "all it takes is for one to work
| out". Try and fail and try again.
| kristianp wrote:
| Often the "one" you need isn't the ideal, it's just what gets
| you into the market. I'm thinking a job that gets you some
| experience and much needed pay or a property that lets you
| build equity while prices continue to climb.
| riazrizvi wrote:
| Maybe consider that we are all calibrated to standards that are
| this hodgepodge of other people's messaging of what standards
| should be, and they communicate them for a variety of reasons,
| very few of which are truly designed for your reality, your
| situation.
|
| So when you say, 'kinda sucks', perhaps ask if the opinion is
| grounded in (your) reality?
|
| Once recalibrated to accept that what we are in, is inescapable
| true life, then we stop looking for something better, and
| instead focus on the challenge of making it better than it
| should naturally be.
|
| Happiness I believe, is a decision, we choose it when we feel
| it's a sustainable perspective. I think it's sustainable to
| allow ourselves to be happy, whenever we achieve marginal
| improvement on what is natural.
| augusto-moura wrote:
| These are not final decisions, get something going is better
| than nothing. You don't need to be locked on a job, or a house,
| or a degree. People have more time in their life than they seem
| to think. Sure, you might spend a few years on something not
| ideal, but the alternative being nothing is much worse
| jaychia wrote:
| Great article and a timely reminder for many :)
|
| Applicable not just for grad school applications, but also to job
| apps, startups, and relationships.
|
| Hang in there y'all, all it takes is for one to work out. Keep
| working hard, kings & queens.
| flatline wrote:
| We job hop, have multiple hustles. Many people on this board have
| started multiple companies, sometimes at once, on an ongoing
| basis. Do you only want just one friend? People tend to have
| multiple romantic/sexual entanglements, sometimes at once, but
| generally more than one over a lifetime.
|
| I think this can be a useful maxim to get you to the next day,
| but in reality it takes a lot more than one of anything for a
| fulfilling life. We grow and change and need novelty. We are held
| in a web of interdependent, ever-shifting relationships - with
| people, businesses, material goods, ecology. I think that
| generally people are seeking connection in a broader sphere. To
| be held in community, to have multiple significant identities
| (mother/wife/boss), to live in richness and abundance where any
| one thing is not make or break.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> in reality it takes a lot more than one of anything for a
| fulfilling life_
|
| We seem to view "reality" through different lenses. I've
| usually found "one" to be a magic number; as long as it's the
| "right one." That's the gist of what he's saying.
|
| In my experience, needing more than one, often signals issues
| that need closer examination.
|
| In my community, we have a joke: _" An addict is someone that
| needs two One-A-Days."_
| HPsquared wrote:
| I find the same, individual jobs or relationships seem to
| give supralinear returns.
|
| There's a lot of initial investment and groundworks, then
| once you're well-integrated, the marginal returns get higher
| for the most established relationships.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Getting from zero straight to _the one_ is like winning the
| lottery. Most people need to get through multiple "ones" to
| find "the one".
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Agreed. It's not what I'd call a "fulfilling" process,
| though.
| afro88 wrote:
| Do you really think that is what the author meant? They're not
| saying "you only need 1". They're talking about going from 0 to
| 1. It's sometimes a long and arduous 0. Your framing doesn't
| help someone trying to get from 0 to 1. Once they're at 1
| though, sure. But getting there can feel helpless, and that's
| what this post is about.
| j45 wrote:
| We can try to walk in 10-20 directions at the same time and
| move a tiny direction all, or none.
|
| Or we can realize we have some things to learn that we will
| learn no matter whether we pick the startup, or job to learn
| transferrable skills and also become better well rounded.
| siliconc0w wrote:
| It's also interesting to consider that we are such adaptative
| creatures that we will likely settle to a similar level of
| happiness no matter what the choice.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Purely poetic advice. If the local economy collapses, you will
| very much want to move. There's still a 50% chance the first
| spouse doesn't hold up until death. There are many schools that
| give out degrees that aren't worth a wooden frame in today's job
| market.
| deadbabe wrote:
| While it's true that all we need is one to work out, in general
| we strive to be in positions where we have multiple options, not
| just hinging everything on one passing chance. Life is less
| stressful that way, and that's why people today feel like they
| are under so much pressure and have little choice over how their
| lives unfold.
| samdoesnothing wrote:
| Why are so many people in this thread purposefully
| misinterpreting the post so they can criticize it? The author
| obviously doesn't mean you only need one thing per domain to work
| out in your lifetime, but the present. I.e you don't need two
| girlfriends at once, even though you might have multiple
| relationships throughout your life...
|
| Sheesh. HN is grumpy today.
| jmward01 wrote:
| This is why having a safety net and resources to try again is so
| powerful. Given enough chances you will make it, big. That means
| the #1 factor in success is the number of chances you get to fail
| and try again, not necessarily how inherently good you are. I try
| to remind myself of this often. I have been given so many
| chances, and I took them.
| j45 wrote:
| Well said, this is the real game to pursue. Best of continued
| luck.
| Aurornis wrote:
| This always sounded intuitively correct to me, but looking back
| over the past two decades basically all of the successful
| entrepreneurs and business owners I know didn't come from
| families with a lot of resources and didn't have much of a
| safety net. They just went all in on their goals when they were
| young and had many years ahead of them to start over if it all
| went wrong.
|
| Contrast this with some of the people I grew up who came from
| wealthy families: A lot of their parents pushed them toward
| entrepreneurship and funded their ventures, but to date I can
| only think of one business from this cluster of friends that
| went anywhere. When you come from such resources and wealth
| that you don't need to succeed and you can drop the business as
| soon as it becomes difficult, it's a different situation.
|
| I don't know exactly what to make of this, other than to remind
| myself to keep pushing through the difficult times for things I
| really want even when I could fall back to an easy path and
| give up.
| jbs789 wrote:
| If you don't have a fall back, you have no choice but to make
| it work.
| JustExAWS wrote:
| Or fail miserably...
| fragmede wrote:
| Which we don't hear about. Except maybe via GoFundMe.
| bbarnett wrote:
| You know what?
|
| Peter used to say, that every successful company could
| look back at a defining moment early on, where they would
| have died had it not been for the courage, and the
| tenacity, and maybe the insanity of one visionary person
| who put it all on the line, even though it seemed like a
| huge mistake at the time.
|
| A moment where all the metrics and the numbers didn't
| mean anything.
|
| It was all about the emotion. It was about belief,
| rational or irrational.
|
| And I think...
|
| I hope that I just witnessed that.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| On the other hand, no matter what you do, you can't
| invest like Warren Buffett.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamhartung/2014/11/19/why-
| you-...
|
| The whole idea of succeeding by "grit" makes way too many
| people too idealistic and unrealistic.
|
| Don't get me wrong, Peter Drucker (hopefully that's the
| Peter you are referring to) had some great actionable
| advice. But believing in yourself and having grit is
| about as banal as "thoughts and prayers"
| anukin wrote:
| I hope it's Peter drucker instead of Peter griffin
| toss1 wrote:
| You know what? This is indeed where courage, tenacity,
| and risk-taking make a difference.
|
| But what makes the difference in whether or not we hear
| about it is pure luck and survivor bias.
|
| If their luck was just right that with all that push in
| the right time the deal came through or the product sold,
| then we hear about what a great success it was, and how
| important was their grit.
|
| And many smart determined people with all the courage,
| tenacity, and risk-taking in the world have also taken
| the big risk, but dice did not roll their way, or the
| hill was just so steep it didn't work, so we hear nothing
| of them. And their number likely vastly exceeds the few
| for whom it did work.
| WalterBright wrote:
| At one point in Tesla's path, Musk was down to a net
| worth of $200k or so. He laid his entire fortune on the
| line. How many of us would be willing to do that? Not me.
| jdiff wrote:
| Is that courage or ketamine? I'm not sure there's
| anything aspirational there, or just a huge streak of
| vanity. Just look at all the plastic surgery.
| WalterBright wrote:
| If you think taking drugs is the key to success, well,
| it's not a path I'd try.
| jdiff wrote:
| I did say, "I'm not sure there's anything aspirational
| there."
|
| But clearly it does have a chance at success, as
| evidenced by Elon. Or, as it always turns out, it's
| difficult to fail anywhere but up when you're wealthy.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Always? Why aren't there more trillionaires?
|
| The usual arc is the first generation makes it, the
| second spends it, and the third is back in the middle
| class.
|
| Clearly? He's probably drunk some alcohol. Does that mean
| alcohol is clearly the path to success?
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| At a young age and knowing I could easily get a job and
| rebuild? Why not? $200K to get back is a year a two in
| Silicon Valley just working in a tech company.
|
| By 2010 with a combination of divorce and over investing
| in real estate before the financial crisis I had a
| negative net worth of over $200K at 36 years old and
| absolutely no money in the bank. I really didn't stress
| at all. They were just numbers.
|
| I had a job, a home and parents who could help me out a
| little when needed mostly for unexpected expenses because
| my credit was also shot by 2013 with 5 foreclosures/short
| sales.
|
| At 51, remarried for 15 years and grown (step)kids and
| working remotely, and a lot of other quality of life
| changes, we are good.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Going from $200 million to $200 thousand in a few months
| is a terrifying drop.
|
| No, you cannot make $200m overnight from $200g.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| The question was whether I would take a chance with my
| last $200K.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Musk did. Most wouldn't.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Young and knowing your future earning potential? That's.
| I different than paying $200K for college. That's only
| slightly more than the average new grad makes working at
| any of the BigTech companies their first year.
|
| What else was he going to do? Hoard it in a High Yield
| Savings account?
| wat10000 wrote:
| Cortez burning^Wscuttling his ships.
| WJW wrote:
| And if making it by hoping really really hard doesn't work,
| try suicide or something?
| zmmmmm wrote:
| you can extend that to all Silicon Valley and the US in
| general.
|
| It has one of the weakest social security systems. Not even
| proper healthcare is guaranteed. Yet it out innovates all of
| Europe, Canada, Australia, other places that have incredible
| social "safety nets".
|
| I agree with the other commenter: safety nets and multiple
| tries are always good to have, but persistence and grit are
| even more important, and these come more from necessity.
| bequanna wrote:
| > Not even proper healthcare is guaranteed.
|
| ...except it is. Health insurance is available on a sliding
| scale based on income and essentially free for most low
| income people.
| nradov wrote:
| Sure, although in some areas healthcare is effectively
| unavailable to Medicaid plan members because providers
| have stopped accepting those patients. Being insured
| doesn't mean much if you can't schedule an appointment.
|
| https://www.wsj.com/health/healthcare/medicaid-insurers-
| doct...
| agf wrote:
| In some areas and for some people, Medicaid probably does
| count as proper healthcare. But it certainly doesn't for
| other people / other places. Imagine there being one
| doctor within a multi-million person metro area who takes
| Medicaid for some sub-specialty. 90 minutes away from you
| by car. And you don't have a car. This is the reality for
| millions of Medicaid recipients, including ones I know
| personally in Chicago.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Not Medicaid, subsidized ACA. I know a lot of young
| healthy people that just take the chance of not having
| health care. Worse case you can't squeeze blood out of a
| turnip if you have to go the emergency room.
|
| I don't think my older (step)son has had insurance since
| he got off our plan at 26 over two years ago.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Most of the US graduates have their degree and a network to
| fall back on. It's nice to have actual money in the bank,
| but it can also be acceptable to have a high chance of
| getting a rewarding job if the moonshot doesn't work.
|
| In other words, human capital.
|
| Most of the entrepreneurs I meet are not going to be
| homeless if things don't work out. They'll be employed.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Exactly this many also have parents who can help
| subsidize them, stay on their parents health insurance
| until they are 26 and worse case move back home. This
| isn't just the privilege rich, this can also be your mid
| to mid upper income couple who can help their kids out.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Yep, and most of these fallbacks are insurance-like: you
| can always say you never asked your parents for anything.
| Like me. Thing worked out, so I didn't need their money.
| But if they hadn't, I would have a place to sleep and
| eat.
| userulluipeste wrote:
| _" But if they hadn't, I would have a place to sleep and
| eat."_
|
| Forgive me for asking, but (if it's acceptable to reduce
| it to that) isn't joining the army or something gets one
| covered? The army service would come with the added bonus
| of not letting you go soft in perseverance and risk
| taking areas.
|
| /sarcasm
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| You can have all of the "grit" you want to and still fail.
| You just never hear about the failures.
| exceptione wrote:
| > Yet it out innovates all of Europe, Canada, Australia,
| other places that have incredible social "safety nets".
|
| Probability: highly unlikely.
|
| Speaking for Europe, I see a lot of silent innovation. No
| press, no LinkedIn posts, not an article on their website.
| There are a lot of US firms that shop in Europe for high
| tech. (I know of instances were the US company buys the IP
| from the EU supplier + take public credit for it + forbids
| the supplier for showcasing their success in public.)
|
| What is different is:
|
| 1) the amount of money available in the US. The US enjoyed
| a very beneficial position post-WOII, enabling them to run
| high deficits.
|
| 2) the US has a positive attitude to entrepreneurship. You
| are not a failure when your company goes bankrupt, you
| learn from it and you go-go-go.
| enaaem wrote:
| Also the EU lacks a unified capital market where infinite
| VC money can be pooled together into any new hype. I
| would argue this the biggest reason.
| userulluipeste wrote:
| EU countries also have very high tax rates, which feels
| like the community is the primary beneficiary of your
| business, not you the entrepreneur. This alone severely
| reduces the financial incentive of starting a business.
| There's also some weird cultural stigma in the EU's more
| socialist countries (like France), where the system is
| way more comfortable for you as an employee rather than a
| risk taker. Let's call a spade a spade.
| enaaem wrote:
| The way you say it, it sounds like the EU shouldn't have
| any companies at all, but that is not true. In fact, the
| EU is very good at boring tech, which is the reason why
| the US is imposing high tariffs.
| lanfeust6 wrote:
| Productivity is lacking in those other countries. That
| said, I don't think it has to do with safety net, which
| is not much different in the U.S.
| jryle70 wrote:
| What is silent innovation? Do you think there are no
| silent innovation in the US?
| watwut wrote:
| Europe innovates. What it creates less are large
| monopolies. What America creates much more then Europe is
| winner takes all markets with little competition and large
| powerful companies on top.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Necessity is too fallible though, if Bezos was driven by
| necessity he would have sold Amazon in 1996 and retired.
|
| That level of success requires either just pure
| psychopathic drive or some kind of deep anger that forces
| you to keep proving yourself again and again.
|
| Beyond the lack of safety nets, etc., we just have a
| culture in the USA where you continually have to compete to
| prove your value as an individual.
|
| There was some story I read where Farmers wanted to get
| immigrant laborers to work longer hours, so they offered a
| temporarily increased hourly rate. Like for the next month
| we pay $5/hr instead of just $3. The thought was workers
| would work like mad to hoard as much of the increased rate
| as they could. The opposite happened, they started working
| less because they just wanted $X/month and then to relax
| the rest of the time. That always stood out to me as a
| stark example that our American psychology is not at all
| universal, and is kind of perverted in certain lights.
| moralestapia wrote:
| Every single western "entrepreneur" who starts making a
| little more than 100k/year likes to tell itself this story.
|
| Did you have any (real, not GenZ) mental or physical
| disability?
|
| Did you have a house to come back to every day? Did you have
| a hot meal waiting for you whenever you wanted?
|
| Did you have a community that supported you through your
| business?
|
| Did you have a legal structure around you that allowed you
| not to worry about getting kidnapped/killed? A structure that
| enforces getting paid after you've earned your money?
|
| 98% of what you have was given.
|
| I do agree, however, that a lot of people don't even bother
| to put in the remaining 2%.
| LPisGood wrote:
| All of those things are great and should be afforded to
| every Person. In many places, they are.
| cadamsdotcom wrote:
| "Can you start a business without $10m of family capital"
| is a societal question.
|
| "Can you start a business on an empty stomach without a
| roof over your head" is not the same debate. A roof over
| your head is a prerequisite to almost everything else in
| life - starting a business is WAY down the list. Better to
| have societies work to provide food and roofs - which they
| do, with varying degrees of success.
| moralestapia wrote:
| It is the exact same debate.
|
| People without those things cannot play the lottery as
| many times as those who have them. They might not even
| get to play it once.
|
| If everyone around you has all of those basic human needs
| met, _you are the exception_.
|
| But of course people don't like to hear this, because
| their whole meritocracy myth (which has always been
| trash) comes falling down and they might be forced to
| admit that, please excuse me for making this outrageous
| statement, ... you're just an average person with
| slightly better luck than others.
|
| (It is true, however, that "luck" compounds through your
| life and even more through generations, though. But that
| even detracts from the meritocracy myth even more, as the
| family you're born in greatly defines what you'll
| achieve.)
| beeflet wrote:
| I don't think anyone believes the idea of meritocracy
| applies to starving homeless slaves.
|
| Luck is often the deciding factor in meritocracy, but we
| also make our own luck. You can have all the privleges in
| the world and still end up as a failson, it happens all
| the time.
| userulluipeste wrote:
| Becoming an entrepreneur happens most of the times merely
| for advancing one's personal financial success. But,
| another side of it, which doesn't usually get attention,
| is that you become a beneficial factor for the society at
| large, because you are assumed to be doing something good
| and appreciated by others to earn that money. (Otherwise,
| earning money without being willingly paid, would make
| you just a criminal). You are right, this "compounds
| through your life and even more through generations".
| Especially through generations. This is how the
| prosperous societies got here - people doing all sorts of
| things that led to prosperity. If you don't not live in a
| society like that, then your business should be building
| a society first. Put your brick in the wall.
|
| It also means that, unless the state of the environment
| you're in has some "force majeure" as a cause, then the
| people that were before you haven't done that of a good
| job building one either. That's not an individual
| failure, that's generations of failure, don't you think?
|
| And lastly, if the environment you described is the one
| you're residing in, that means you're far removed from
| that of the entrepreneur's (you're casting judgement on)
| and from his/her stance. How can that lead to a caracter
| judgement worth anything?
| moralestapia wrote:
| >If you don't not live in a society like that, then your
| business should be building a society first. Put your
| brick in the wall.
|
| Totally agree.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| What's even funnier when I hear that my thought is
| "congratulations I guess??". They are now making less than
| an average mid level developer doing CRUD enterprise dev 3
| years out of school in any major metro area in the US.
|
| That's not even considering that the intern I mentored in
| 2021 is now making in the low $200s as an SA at BigTech at
| 25.
| konaraddi wrote:
| > looking back over the past two decades basically all of the
| successful entrepreneurs and business owners I know didn't
| come from families with a lot of resources and didn't have
| much of a safety net
|
| There's probably some truthyness to this but it doesn't
| account for survivorship bias. And there's a baseline amount
| of resources necessary to take a risk and be able to try
| again (e.g., good luck taking a risk when preoccupied by
| [lack of] health, housing, food).
| enaaem wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Look at success in buckets. 10x , 100x, 1000x etc
| jryle70 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > 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.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Okay can you name one successful modern day tech company
| whose founders didn't come from money?
| bluecalm wrote:
| NVidia
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Jensen Hung's father was an engineer and his mother was a
| teacher. He wasn't going to be homeless and on the street
| if he failed.
|
| And he didn't come straight out college either. He worked
| at AMD and I'm sure he had established some type of
| financial foundation and I'm sure he could have easily
| found a job if Nvidia failed with his background.
| bluecalm wrote:
| >>Jensen Hung's father was an engineer and his mother was
| a teacher. He wasn't going to be homeless and on the
| street if he failed.
|
| So now the goalposts are "isn't desperate" while a while
| ago it was "came from money". Having caring parents and
| being raised in culture that value education help. No one
| is arguing that.
|
| >>And he didn't come straight out college either. He
| worked at AMD and I'm sure he had established some type
| of financial foundation and I'm sure he could have easily
| found a job if Nvidia failed with his background.
|
| He needed to get a job first like a average person before
| starting his own company. Privilege!
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| We have been talking about a safety net this entire
| thread and how you can make mistakes if you have one more
| easily than if you don't
| signatoremo wrote:
| Not the OP, but I can name many: Andy Grove (Intel) ,
| Steve Jobs (Apple), Larry Page, Sergei Brin (Google),
| Reed Hastings (Netflix), Michael Dell (Dell).
|
| They all seem to come from solidly middle or upper middle
| class, so no poverty but not different than many of us on
| HN.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| The argument was not that you had to be rich, just that
| you had a safety net so you could take risks and know you
| had a fallback without being homeless and hungry.
|
| But the Google cofounders specifically both had parents
| who were early computer scientists or mathematicians
|
| In all fairness, I haven't been consistent between
| "coming from enough money that your parents can be your
| angel investors" and "you can afford to fail and call
| your parents for help with the rent".
| signatoremo wrote:
| Your question is naming just one not coming from money.
| None of the people I listed did.
|
| Wealthy background surely helps immensely, but other
| factors such as environment are vital as well. Google
| founders met at Stanford, in the heart of Silicon Valley,
| at the height of the dotcom era. That's more important
| than their background.
|
| Being wealthy is not the most important factor to one's
| success. 50% of US population is middle class. Even if
| those I listed were all upper middle class, that would
| still be perhaps 5% of US population, or millions of
| people. Yet only a few rise to the top.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| While not a tech company founder, Oprah Winfrey created a
| media empire. She was born to a teenage mother in rural
| Mississippi (and poverty).
|
| If someone wants a story about overcoming one's lot in
| life through grit, hard work and making the most of
| situations/opportunities her story is one you'll want;
| maybe not as relatable as the Bezos, Dell, Jobs, Musk etc
| but a story that poverty->billionaire entrepreneur can
| happen. There is also a reason she is the only one I can
| think of that fits description.
| EGreg wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| What is the other way of going about things? Assuming you
| will fail and never trying?
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| 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.
| rmason wrote:
| What about Replit? Two guys in a coffee shop in Jordan,
| you cannot be much further from Silicon Valley. They got
| turned down four times from YC and decided never to try
| again. But pg fell in love with the startup and urged him
| to try again. Then during the interview one of them got
| into a heated argument with Michael Siebel and thought
| for sure he had failed.
|
| Yet he got in without a wealthy family and an American
| Ivy League degree. There are lots of other examples, I
| can even think of a one in Michigan.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| And how many of the thousands of YC companies have
| disappeared in to obscurity?
|
| How many of these do you think will see a successful
| exit?
|
| https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Uy2aWoeRZopMIaXXx
| Y2E...
|
| And "raising funding" is not a successful business.
| Having an exit where you as the founder makes an outsized
| return is.
|
| Another definition is being profitable. Any idiot can
| sell dollars for $0.95 backed by VC's hoping to find the
| "greater fool"
| tgma wrote:
| Bezos's mom giving Bezos 300k was more of a favor to the
| mom, not the kid. He was already VP at DE Shaw at the
| time.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > giving him $300K
|
| Yes, and cities are filled with $300K and up houses. The
| idea that Bezos started Amazon with unusual vast wealth
| is wrong.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Yes. But how many can and will give their children $300K
| in cash? Did she refinance her house and use the cash to
| give to her son?
| WalterBright wrote:
| If you can buy a house for $300k, you can invest the
| money instead. If you choose "house", you're going to
| have a much harder time accumulating wealth.
|
| I wish I hadn't bought a house instead of investing it
| all in MSFT. I know people at the time who borrowed every
| dollar they could and plowed it into MSFT. They became
| very, very wealthy. I was too chicken. Bwaaack, cluck
| cluck!
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Or you could have invested in every YC company that went
| public.
|
| https://medium.com/@Arakunrin/the-post-ipo-performance-
| of-y-...
|
| You never hear about the people who made bad investments.
|
| Or everyone who invested their life savings, refinanced
| their house, withdrew everything from their 401K and
| still failed.
|
| If you have a paid off house you have some place to live,
| the alternative is to be paying rent that goes up every
| year.
|
| My rent in 2016 before I had my house built was $1800. My
| mortgage was $2300. By 2024, rent had gone up at the same
| place to $2400. My mortgage besides property taxes and
| insurance won't go up nearly as much[1]
|
| It reminds me of people in BigTech that don't sell their
| RSUs as soon as they vest and diversify. I make just as
| much now in cash as I did in BigTech with the difference
| being 40% was in RSUs. Why would I keep 40% of my income
| in AMZN any more than I would take 40% of my cash income
| and put in AMZN?
|
| [1] Anecdotely I sold in 2024 at exactly twice the price
| I had a built for in northern Atlanta and bought a condo
| in state tax free central Florida for half the price.
| WalterBright wrote:
| If you don't want to take the risk, then don't do it. But
| criticizing others who do take the risk, and succeeded,
| isn't fair.
|
| A general rule is the more risk you're willing to take,
| the more potential for gain.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| I am criticizing the idea that all it takes is "grit" and
| if you work really hard you will succeed.
|
| Thought experiment: 10 people out of college take "huge
| risks and work really hard". A second set of 10 people
| just get boring enterprise Dev jobs and the third set all
| work in BigTech for 10 years. Rank the three groups in
| the order of expected median total income over the
| decade?
| WalterBright wrote:
| > I am criticizing the idea that all it takes is "grit"
| and if you work really hard you will succeed.
|
| Ok, but I did not suggest that.
|
| Working hard is not good enough. It's necessary to work
| at the right things - and it is hardly obvious which are
| the right things. Taking risks is also necessary. The
| bigger the risks, the bigger the potential gains.
|
| But nothing is guaranteed.
|
| Spending one's youth playing video games diminishes your
| chances of financial success to around zero.
| filoleg wrote:
| > It reminds me of people in BigTech that don't sell
| their RSUs as soon as they vest and diversify. I make
| just as much now in cash as I did in BigTech with the
| difference being 40% was in RSUs. Why would I keep 40% of
| my income in AMZN any more than I would take 40% of my
| cash income and put in AMZN?
|
| I mean, I didn't sell my RSUs as soon as they vested,
| because I worked for a BigTech company that I believed
| was on the upswing, and I was willing to take that risk
| of not selling.
|
| Sure, it is an equivalent of buying those shares on your
| own, but again, it still felt way safer (and way more
| flexible/liquid, as I could sell my shares at any moment)
| to me than working at a startup with extremely illiquid
| equity. And I was already pretty much broke with no
| safety net (my internship over the summer back then made
| me more than my entire family combined earned in ~6
| months; this is not an internship flex, there were plenty
| that paid more, this is just to illustrate the gap
| between some bigtech internship salaries and what my
| family was making), so I was willing to take the risk.
|
| The risk ended up paying off, and that BigTech company
| went from ~$60/share to $300+/share in barely 5 years,
| turning my initial stock grant into a lifechanging amount
| for someone in my position. No, it isn't even close to
| being enough to buy a house outright or retire, but it is
| my (and my family's) safety net now. I can afford to help
| my sister pay rent with zero "can i actually afford it"
| thought in my mind.
|
| TLDR: yes, not diversifying is risky. However, you cannot
| make lifechanging money without taking risks, whether it
| is through joining a promising startup or not
| diversifying your investments or anything else. I am not
| advocating anyone to do what I did, as I agree with you
| that selling RSUs on vest is the most safe option. There
| are no totally safe options for making lifechanging
| (whatever that means for you) amounts of money, so you
| gotta pick your poison, if that's something you want. For
| me personally, making bigtech salary at a company that I
| believed was on the upswing (and saving a good amount of
| it), while keeping all vested RSUs in my account (and
| selling no more than 5% of it each year), was an
| acceptable level of risk (that I wouldn't regret doing,
| even if the price of those shares ended up dying
| significantly).
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Why wouldn't you at least cash it all out and diversify
| into all of the Big 5 then or Mag 7 now?
| majormajor wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| Citation needed that panicking and quitting early is a
| "poverty mentality".
| Normal_gaussian wrote:
| I've seen quite a few of these funded entrepreneur-lifestyle
| kids now; I've worked (briefly) with many of their companies.
| Many of them are making enough of a real go at it such that I
| can't tell them from others, but quite a few don't know
| enough about how a default alive business works and deliver a
| DoA even when the core idea or a short pivot works and has
| traction - these guys need so much better PMF to succeed.
|
| The best businesses I've seen parents find for their children
| are lettings agents (urgh) and basic manufacturing (last mile
| door assembly etc.). You can get the business model in a six
| month course, the staff are minimum wage, the product is high
| margin. If your parents buy the building you are so close to
| default alive its a joke. Grow the business, flip it, and try
| the big idea.
| hooverd wrote:
| Well, how many non-successful entrepreneurs and business
| owners do you know?
| an0malous wrote:
| Who are you thinking of? Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, Musk all
| came from wealthy families. They all had the safety net of
| their family wealth if their business didn't work out. Even
| someone who had parents to pay their student loans is
| relatively privileged, not everyone starts their 20's debt-
| free and able to take financial risks.
| wisty wrote:
| What was Musk families net worth?
|
| I hear this conspiracy theory that he's was super rich. But
| owning a mine could mean anything from a basically bankrupt
| speculator to the De Beers. There's claims he gave Musk
| $28k ... that's not evena decent college fund.
| wnevets wrote:
| They had this amount of money
|
| > As a result of this, the teenage Elon Musk once walked
| the streets of New York with emeralds in his pocket. His
| father said: "We were very wealthy. We had so much money
| at times we couldn't even close our safe," adding that
| one person would have to hold the money in place with
| another closing the door. "And then there'd still be all
| these notes sticking out and we'd sort of pull them out
| and put them in our pockets." [1]
|
| [1] https://www.independent.co.uk/space/elon-musk-made-
| money-ric...
| eru wrote:
| That seems pretty silly. Why keep your wealth as cash in
| a safe?
|
| (And why not use a fraction of the money to buy a second
| safe, if you really have to keep it in a safe at home.)
| prerok wrote:
| That was probably just their pocket money.
| eru wrote:
| Well, there might have been some weirdness about South
| Africa at the time. Perhaps financial institutions had
| some weird weaknesses.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| To keep it away from the tax man.
| eru wrote:
| Maybe. But wouldn't you rather hire a good accountant and
| lawyer instead of bothering with cash at home?
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| A good accountant or lawyer would tell you to pay the
| taxes you can't avoid.
| LanceH wrote:
| I know nothing about this specific situation, so I'm not
| speak to that. I am speaking to "why keep your wealth as
| cash in a safe?"
|
| I'm old enough that grandparents lived through the great
| depression. I know they kept wealth in a safe. A lot of
| their kids did as well. The grandparents had their gold
| money taken away, or their cash disappeared in banks. A
| lot of their kids followed along.
|
| Being gen X, Elon has parents/grandparents that lived
| through the great depression and world war. That along
| with any other local factors makes keeping wealth in a
| safe not that unusual.
| wnevets wrote:
| > That seems pretty silly. Why keep your wealth as cash
| in a safe?
|
| Was it during the apartheid boycotts?
| input_sh wrote:
| The pocket emerald story that comes before that "we were
| very wealthy" line is even more telling. It's missing
| from that Independent article, but that article's based
| on this Business Insider interview:
| https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musks-dad-tells-bi-
| abou...
|
| > Elon, by his father's recollection then probably 16
| years old, and his brother Kimbal, decided to sell
| emeralds to Tiffany & Co. on Fifth Avenue in New York -
| one of the world's most famous jewelers - as his father
| lay sleeping. "They just walked into Tiffany's and said,
| 'Do you want to buy some emeralds?'" Errol recalled in an
| interview with Business Insider South Africa. "And they
| sold two emeralds, one was for $800 and I think the other
| one was for $1,200."
|
| > A few days later the family returned to the store to
| find that Tiffany was selling the $800 emerald, now set
| in a ring, for $24,000 -- a markup of 30 times the price
| Elon had received for the gem.
|
| > Errol has used the story as on object lesson in how
| retail works ever since. He was surprised but not
| concerned by the incident, Errol says, because money was
| plentiful.
|
| > "We were very wealthy," says Errol. "We had so much
| money at times we couldn't even close our safe."
|
| So, selling-emeralds-to-Tiffany's-at-16 rich.
| astura wrote:
| From his dad's Wikipedia page:
|
| >His lucrative engineering business took on "large
| projects such as office buildings, retail complexes,
| residential subdivisions, and an air force base." He also
| owned an auto parts store, at least half a share in an
| emerald mine, and even "one of the biggest houses in
| Pretoria."[12] His ex-wife Maye's book recalls that at
| the time of their divorce in 1979, he owned two homes, a
| yacht, a plane, five luxury cars, and a truck.[13]
|
| Elon was 8 in 1979.
| darkwater wrote:
| Only 2 homes? What a loser...
| WalterBright wrote:
| Musk took low wage jobs when he arrived in the US.
| bdangubic wrote:
| Zuckerberg's salary today is $1 :)
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Is this some type of founders myth?
|
| Musk left Canada at 17, went to college in the US and
| sold is first business in 1999.
|
| But I also worked at low minimum wage job at 18 at Radio
| Shack while living at home with my parents driving the
| car my parents bought me. I assure you if I have lost my
| job, it wouldn't have hurt. I would just spend more time
| hanging out with my friends and on my $4K Mac setup.
|
| Musk was not going to be homeless if he failed.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Feel free to read a biography of him.
|
| > Musk was not going to be homeless if he failed.
|
| Right. He'd just get a job and rent an apartment.
|
| I had a friend who started company after company starting
| in high school. Some were more successful than others,
| but he never lost his enthusiasm for the next company.
| The last time I saw him, he was living out of a trailer
| because he put everything he had into his next company.
| (Sadly, he passed a few years ago from an accident.) He
| left behind a large wake, and his memorial service was
| packed.
|
| (He grew up in poverty.)
| omnicognate wrote:
| I'm not sure what point is being made here. AIUI, Musk
| comes from a wealthy family. Are you saying a biography
| would say otherwise?
|
| I think the point people are making about the low wage
| jobs is that it's irrelevant. People from wealthy
| backgrounds take low paid jobs sometimes, so having done
| so doesn't imply he's a rags-to-riches story.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I'm saying Musk's company was not founded on family
| wealth. Even if it was, where are all the other trillion
| dollar companies given that lots of families have wealth?
|
| > People from wealthy backgrounds take low paid jobs
| sometimes, so having done so doesn't imply he's a rags-
| to-riches story.
|
| It does in Musk's case. Why not read a biography of him?
| It's more interesting than speculation.
| forgotoldacc wrote:
| > Right. He'd just get a job and rent an apartment.
|
| I'm not sure if you're suggesting homeless people are
| homeless simply because they refuse to go out and get a
| job and an apartment. But as someone who's been homeless
| and someone who's a friend of people who've been
| homeless, a very large number of homeless people bust
| their asses at work. Things beyond their control go wrong
| and they have no social safety net to fall back on.
|
| Elon Musk could've vacationed barefoot in Southeast Asia
| for 5 years and still returned to be given some executive
| job offer, just as many other children of rich kids do.
| Most people don't have that level of good fortune.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Elon Musk could've vacationed barefoot in Southeast
| Asia for 5 years and still returned to be given some
| executive job offer, just as many other children of rich
| kids do.
|
| Except that is not what happened. He started doing menial
| jobs in Canada. He was never given some executive job
| offer.
| hparadiz wrote:
| > Musk was not going to be homeless if he failed.
|
| I think I can safely say that about every single person I
| know from college with most being normies. No sane parent
| is gonna not put up their college student kid till they
| figure out their next step.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| There is a huge difference between
|
| 1. "Son, here is $5000 to cover your rent, utilities and
| food for one month while you look for another job in San
| Francisco" and keep doing that for 6 months
|
| And
|
| 2. "We can't afford to help you pay your rent so you are
| going to have to break your lease and come back home to
| East MiddleOfNowhere Nebraska. You might be able to get a
| job at "Big John's Fish Tackle and WordPress Shop" and
| maintain the local church's blog.
|
| I knew my parents would be able to do a cheaper version
| of #1 s/Atlanta/SFO and s/Small town South GA/Nebraska.
|
| I had a friend who I graduated with who was the oldest of
| three or four kids and whose mom was a single mother who
| couldn't afford to subsidize him.
|
| I was able to move to Atlanta and get a lower paying job
| as a computer operator based on an internship the year
| before because I knew that's where I needed to be. My
| parents did subsidize me for the first year while I
| hustled my way to a better job through networking. I
| couldn't have done that in small town South GA.
|
| He ended up moving to a slight bigger small town on the
| border of GA and Alabama that paid more, lower cost of
| living and lower opportunities
| yunwal wrote:
| There's no way you didn't know anyone whose parents
| couldn't put them up for a year. There are lots of people
| who go to college who's parents don't have 30k spending
| money
| WalterBright wrote:
| Putting up your son on the couch is not expensive.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| And then they are in the MiddleOfNowhere Nebraska and
| having to maybe move from where the jobs are and where
| they can network. It is expensive to subsidize their
| living away from home.
| some_guy_nobel wrote:
| Laughable that you believe this. Do you still after
| seeing all the counter evidence? Do you sit back and ask
| yourself, "I wonder if the world's richest man has a PR
| firm, one so effective it has me working for it part time
| spreading the lies."?
| WalterBright wrote:
| I read his biography. Which one did you read?
| darkwater wrote:
| Agiography, you mean?
| some_guy_nobel wrote:
| Of course you did, his PR team knew exactly who to market
| it to.
| WalterBright wrote:
| What's your source of information?
| bear141 wrote:
| You can choose to think that op meant only the most
| insanely rich billionaires. I thought they meant their
| actual experiences with peers. Cut out the outliers and be
| realistic and I think it's easier to understand the point
| without the extremism. The range of what people consider
| success is quite large.
| sillyfluke wrote:
| Yes, it's a bit forced trying to turn someone's anecdotes
| that spur some food for thought into some kind of a
| categoric stance.
|
| They asked the parent who they were thinking of, a more
| recent example of an "up and coming" billionaire would be
| Palmer Luckey, whose life experience seems to be at least
| consistent with his stance against optionality.
|
| Edit: Ref
|
| "A lot of my peers in the tech industry do not share this
| philosophy ... They're always pursuing everything with
| optionality. 'Oh, I need to be able to raise money from
| anybody. I need to be able to sell my business in any
| way. I need to have liquidity in any way. I need to make
| sure that I'm not closing myself off to future romantic
| partners. I need to make sure I've got my options open. I
| need to make sure that I'm not going to buy a house and
| settle down in one place and lock myself down. Oh, having
| children. I don't know. Maybe I'm not ready to commit to
| that path."
|
| https://archive.is/BlzA9
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Puer Aeternus,,,
| an0malous wrote:
| I chose those examples because they're well known and
| public. I asked for counter examples and no one seems to
| be able to share any.
| kelnos wrote:
| I posted some as a reply to one of your other posts.
|
| Why do we need well-known, public examples? I think it
| would be absurd to assert that there are very few
| successful founders that don't come from wealthy
| families. (Just as it would be absurd to suggest there
| are few that do come from wealthy families.)
| lo_zamoyski wrote:
| These are outliers.
|
| Think of motivation. Most people who live financially
| comfortable lives will want little more in the way of
| wealth when balanced against risk and effort. They also
| have something to lose. Their circumstances shift the
| incentives.
|
| Now think of the temperaments of people who chase wealth.
| If they come from money, then the comfort they live in is
| not going to satisfy them. If they come from financially
| less than stellar backgrounds, they may be _more_ likely to
| crave that kind of attainment; money is a kind of
| unfamiliar blank canvas onto which they can project all
| sorts of fantastic expectations (most of which are bogus).
| And unlike the better off, they have less to lose. Add to
| all this an inferiority complex that can compel
| compensation behavior. They may have a tougher start
| financially, but psychologically, they are more compelled
| by their circumstances than their wealthier counterparts.
|
| So we should avoid being reductive.
|
| And we should stop reducing "success" to money.
| abustamam wrote:
| I don't think anyone in this particular thread was
| necessarily reducing or equating success to money, they
| were merely pointing out examples in which certain folks
| attained financial success. The parent-most comment was
| referring to the importance of a safety net in order to
| get more chances (whether it's risking it to become a
| business owner, or going back to school, or whatever your
| definition of success is).
|
| And it's true. If you have a good financial safety net
| then you can take more chances and increase the odds that
| your next risk will be the one that works out.
|
| Of course, the most easily quantifiable definition of
| success is usually financial, and on and off HN, it's
| probably the most common definition of success.
|
| For me myself, I'm grateful to be doing well financially.
| I grew up in an upper middle class family. But I still do
| want to grow my wealth. I am not going to take wild risks
| to do so, but I'll work hard and use my current wealth
| wisely to grow it. What will more wealth get me?
| Financial security, freedom. It'll give my wife and me
| the freedom to choose if we want to stay at home with the
| kids. It'll let us easily fund their college, or whatever
| education or path they decide to pursue. The goal isn't
| being a billionaire. It's freedom and security.
|
| I think that's success for a lot of people, and it
| usually manifests itself as just having more money
| because that's the first step. But it's not always the
| end goal.
| granzymes wrote:
| Bezos' mom had him at 17, his biological father owned a
| bike shop, and his mother remarried when Bezos was 4 to a
| Cuban immigrant who came to the country at 16 and ended up
| working as a petroleum engineer.
|
| They wound up middle class after all that, but I certainly
| wouldn't say Bezos came from a "wealthy family".
| mattm wrote:
| Bezos' parents lent him $250k to start Amazon. The point
| is that by the time Bezos started Amazon they were
| wealthy and could provide him this safety net. Not many
| middle class families would be able to loan their kid
| that much money.
| granzymes wrote:
| That $250k was their life's savings. They made a huge bet
| on their son.
|
| His mom took night classes while raising him so she could
| finish her education while working to support a family.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| isn't this an argument against the original post: that
| the more dice rolls the greater likelihood of success?
| an0malous wrote:
| Do you have a source for that being their life savings?
|
| Most of your points have nothing to do with their wealth.
| Why would it suggest they're poor if his mom had him at
| 17 and was taking night classes while raising him? She
| wasn't employed, that just sounds like she herself was
| still able to take risks beyond her means probably
| because her father was wealthy.
| kelnos wrote:
| Do you have a source for that _not_ being their life
| savings? It sounds like you 're just making assumptions
| and guesses as well; if you're going to assert Bezos came
| from wealth in the first place, you have to back that up.
| Perusing the "early life" section of Bezos' Wikipedia
| page doesn't suggest to me that he came from money, at
| least. But I don't see anyone on either side of the
| argument presenting anything beyond that.
| an0malous wrote:
| > Do you have a source for that not being their life
| savings?
|
| I mean there are many sources that talk about the $300k
| he received from his family to start Amazon, it's a
| famous story. None of those sources mention that it was
| his family's life savings. I don't really know how to
| provide a source that says it _wasn 't_ his family's life
| savings, but I also can't provide a source that says he
| wasn't an alien from Zeta Reticula. This is generally the
| problem with proving a negative and why the onus is
| usually on the person making a positive assertion.
|
| > if you're going to assert Bezos came from wealth in the
| first place, you have to back that up.
|
| I did, I'm saying that a family that can give their son
| $300k to start a business in 1993 is wealthy. That would
| be about $674k today.
| altmanaltman wrote:
| okay but $250k is still $250k right? Most people in the
| world, for most parts of the world, don't see that kind
| of money in an entire lifetime of work. Most people think
| privilege means a trust fund, but a $250k loan of US
| dollars (life-savings or not) is also a privilege that
| most people don't have.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Yep, my father, with no business training or college was
| funded by my grandfather and was in business for years,
| decades. He ultimately failed without any savings and
| died in poverty. Being a small business owner was the
| only job he ever had.
| lisbbb wrote:
| My grandfather was similar--he was the first one to leave
| the farm life and tried several different careers and
| businesses. He worked for a railroad, was a realtor,
| owned a lumber yard, and lastly owned a delicatessen. The
| lumber yard nearly destroyed the entire family because he
| would sell on credit and then contractors failed to pay
| up on time. It was a huge disaster and the the thing is,
| this was way before the Home Depot national type chains
| or the "84 Lumber" regional type chains and if he had had
| any business acumen at all, he could have been the
| franchise. People don't know what they don't know.
| Anyways, my dad worked for my grandfather for free for
| several years and screwed up his life quite a bit doing
| so in order to "save the family" and I think my dad has
| told me this damn story every single time I have called
| him on the telephone for at least the past 30 years. His
| complex over the whole situation must be enormous!
|
| This is why I never started a business myself. I figured
| it was a family curse to fail at business.
| an0malous wrote:
| Bezo's maternal grandfather worked for the Department of
| Energy and owned a ranch in Texas. They were wealthy
| enough to have $300k to give to Jeff in 1993.
| ericmcer wrote:
| Yeah they aren't like, outlier wealthy though. They all had
| lawyer/doctor/banker parents.
|
| If having your student loans paid off for you is enough,
| then there are 10s of millions of people in their shoes.
| Why did they not succeed if that is what it takes?
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| >> Why did they not succeed if that is what it takes?
|
| short answer: it's might be necessary but not sufficient.
|
| Alex Honnold, the rock climber with some pretty
| spectacular solo / speed ascents was asked why no-one
| else has free soloed El Cap, replied "it's hard." he
| spent a lot of time (years) building up to it and
| finishing other routes, and no one else has taken these
| first steps yet. He goes on that they may have the talent
| or disposition, but not the motivation or an experience
| that pushes them in another direction. His perspective
| (similar to general outlier success) is others will do it
| but it takes a bunch of things all coming together,
| including luck.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDTg4P9ZdP4
| an0malous wrote:
| I didn't say they need to be outlier wealthy, I'm
| disagreeing with the assertion that it just takes focus
| and grit to be successful. I agree with the initial
| comment that it has more to do with how many chances you
| get to take, and being able to take chances throughout
| your 20's is a relatively rare and privileged
| opportunity. Most people need to find gainful employment
| immediately after college, they can't take 5-10 years
| making no money on long shot bets.
|
| Where are you getting the figure that there are 10's of
| millions of college grads in their 20's with no debt?
| There are only 2 million undergraduate grads in the US
| every year. I think you're probably off by a couple
| orders of magnitude.
| spixy wrote:
| Contacts.
|
| Bill Gates mother worked with IBM CEO. Without her maybe
| IBM would choose other company than Microsoft.
| bartread wrote:
| > Who are you thinking of?
|
| It's pretty clear that @Aurornis is talking about people
| they know personally. They literally mention that they're
| talking about people they grew up with.
|
| Whereas you are talking about a completely different group
| of people: Bezos, Zuckerberg, Gates, Musk are the
| survivorship bias set.
|
| You're talking at cross purposes with the person you're
| responding to.
| izacus wrote:
| Why would anyone base their debate on "people they
| know"?!
|
| What kind of conversation is worth having with someone
| who doesn't understand observation bias and has a main
| character complex?
| kelnos wrote:
| Those people you mention may be examples of the exception,
| not the rule. Certainly many new businesses work out when
| they are founded by someone from a wealthy family; it would
| be strange if that was _never_ the case.
|
| But maybe it's more common that successful businesses are
| started by founders coming from more modest means. Page &
| Brin, and Jobs & Wozniak come to mind (none came from poor
| families, but they weren't rich either). I'm sure there are
| many other examples, and those are just the famous ones;
| there are many successful companies started by people we've
| never heard of.
| lisbbb wrote:
| You really need to be connected and have resources to
| succeed or the machinery will eat you alive.
| wat10000 wrote:
| I'd expect it to stratify based on the kind of business.
|
| Typical small businesses (plumbing, HVAC, restaurants,
| convenience stores) I'd expect to come from poorer families.
| These businesses are a potential avenue to success without
| traditional credentials, and they're not the sort of thing
| somebody is likely to start as a passion.
|
| From wealthy families, I'd expect vanity businesses. There
| wouldn't be as much motivation for the annoying aspects of a
| real business. And anyone who is interested in business can
| probably get a nice start in something their family owns or
| has a major stake in.
|
| Moonshot companies I'd expect to come from the upper middle
| class, children of doctors and such. Not fabulously wealthy,
| so the potential for making millions can still be a big
| motivator. But comfortable enough to get advanced schooling
| and be willing to aim big with a chance of failure, rather
| than going for something mundane you know is always in
| demand, like fixing pipes.
|
| Off the top of my head, Gates, Page, and Zuckerberg all fit
| that mold.
| nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote:
| Would be interesting to run the priors on this and say what
| is the probability of startup success given "rich" "middle
| class" and "poor".
|
| Otherwise maybe more poor people try startups so success will
| be biased towards them (rich will take over daddy or mommy
| business... maybe take a shot at a startup for fun but say
| meh lets try the business, plus there are waaaaay fewer
| rich).
|
| Or to put it another way: Most people who live >100 are also
| from modest backgrounds too. As are olympic gold winners. Us
| paupers are the best!
| satvikpendem wrote:
| This is literally survivorship bias. All the _successful_
| ones you know of, because the unsuccessful ones failed, by
| definition.
| NoLinkToMe wrote:
| Good to share, but n=1 I suppose. For me (also n=1) it's the
| opposite in my circle. The ones without resources never went
| anywhere and reproduced their parents' class. The ones with
| resources that went into entrepreneurship (and had the
| possibility of failing and still being fine) are the most
| successful.
|
| Agreed on your final point though! Tenacity probably is the
| biggest driver.
| directevolve wrote:
| If most successful entrepreneurs are from ordinary
| backgrounds, one explanation is that most entrepreneurs,
| successful or unsuccessful, are from ordinary backgrounds.
| Another is that wealthy families might be pushing kids into
| entrepreneurship who lack the talent or taste for it.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Is this statistically true or just your experience? I'd be
| very surprised if it was more than just anecdotal.
|
| > They just went all in on their goals when they were young
| and had many years ahead of them to start over if it all went
| wrong.
|
| Lots of well-resourced kids do this and more can do this. By
| the law of averages they should be overrepresented in
| successes here.
|
| > When you come from such resources and wealth that you don't
| need to succeed and you can drop the business as soon as it
| becomes difficult, it's a different situation.
|
| Does needing to succeed make businesses succeed? I don't
| think so, tbh.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| When did you meet the successful entrepreneurs and business
| owners? Because unless you met them when they were starting
| out survivorship bias would account for that.
| keepamovin wrote:
| That's kind of true. If you have a safety net, you kind of
| make the wrong decisions, optimize stuff that doesn't cut
| through the noise and leave something on the track. It's like
| that scene in Dark Knight Rises where he only makes the
| impossible jump out of the prison when he doesn't have the
| safety rope.
| bear141 wrote:
| The defeatist attitude in the reply's to this comment are
| unreal. Try hard or don't. It's up to you. At least with the
| one way you might have a chance.
| yoz-y wrote:
| Most attempts fail and if you get into debt you don't get
| to try again.
|
| I agree that it takes a special kind of person to try and
| try again, but it clearly is not for everyone.
|
| A lot has to come together, you need to be alone, have a
| very supportive partner or be a sociopath (willing to drag
| your family down with you). You need to be in the right
| place (or have the means to move there). This usually works
| when you are young, so definitely having starting capital
| from somewhere works. This was much easier in the marking
| moments of technology where any simple tool or game could
| be transformed into cash. Nowadays you really need to luck
| out.
|
| Europe has generally better safety net and much less
| entrepreneurship spirit for example. So it pushes both
| ways.
|
| I guess one last thing is this weird thing in the US where
| investors somehow like people who previously failed. Like
| Elizabeth Holmes who reportedly went from prison right back
| into the game. With that environment of course it makes
| sense to just try again.
| aprilthird2021 wrote:
| Acknowledging reality isn't defeatist. It's very likely
| that successful entrepreneurs statistically do come from
| richer families. We shouldn't ignore this fact because it's
| more fun and emotionally rewarding to us to pretend
| otherwise
| zamadatix wrote:
| Acknowledging e.g. people who grow up in multilingual
| households usually have an easier time learning a new
| language than someone who didn't shouldn't just be about
| what decision an individual should make for themselves,
| it's about identifying what stimulates that kind of growth
| so we get more of that success overall. I.e. making a
| decision or not to go for the chance myself is a different
| topic than trying to find ways to increase the chances for
| everyone.
|
| Economic growth is not a 0 sum game so why talk about the
| situations around it from only an individual gain
| perspective. If a lot of individuals are saying some
| situational factor makes the choice unreasonably hard then
| that's something worth focusing on rather than dismissing.
| haritha-j wrote:
| Reminds me of the whole you can only succeed when you don't
| have the reassurance of a safety net weighing you down idea
| from dark knight rises.
| nosianu wrote:
| > _over the past two decades basically all of the successful
| entrepreneurs and business owners I know_
|
| This very much sounds like survivorship bias to me.
|
| But more importantly, I think the discussion is going off the
| track. The important ones are the 0.1%, not the 1% or 10%.
| The "normal" millionaire business owner usually actually
| worked for it (unless they are pure finance or something
| similar). They are also not the ones shifting a whole
| country's politics with their enormous influence. They don't
| have any over-inflated influence over anything. They are not
| the problem.
|
| But they also don't serve as examples for the masses, because
| that would be confusing " _anyone_ can do this " with "
| _everyone_ can do this " - their successes don't scale. You
| can only have that many successful businesspeople and
| entrepreneurs, the majority must be their worker bees by
| necessity.
|
| I see such discussions as distractions. If you talk about
| normal entrepreneurship you will not get to the core of our
| problems, not at the very top (the super rich), not at the
| bottom (why are so many so poor).
|
| If you want to come up with an idea that works at scale you
| can't use one that only works for some no matter what. If you
| want to come up with a solution for the enormous imbalances
| looking at those normal entrepreneurs does not help either.
|
| I suggest to develop an instinct to use in these kinds of
| discussions: For every concrete example, imagine it at scale.
| Thinking at individual examples when you talk about big
| things is a mismatch. Those examples are only useful if you
| use them to extrapolate upwards, what would actually happen
| if everybody did this?
| renewiltord wrote:
| If the most important factor in survivorship is number of
| chances you can take; and the number of chances is
| proportional to how much wealth you have; then the
| survivorship bias should go the other way. Otherwise it's
| overwhelmed by something else, perhaps the sheer ratio of
| the differing populations.
| lumb63 wrote:
| I believe we all intuitively push whatever our advantages
| are, often without even knowing it. The advantage that the
| wealthy have are connections, capital, and familial support.
| These advantages lend themselves to activities such as
| starting businesses with high capital requirements,
| accumulating assets ("investing"), working through elite
| colleges to land a prestigious position, heading a
| philanthropy or charity, etc.
|
| That advantage comes with a disadvantage. Because the wealthy
| do not have to work to earn their start, they never learn
| what hard work is capable of producing, and never build the
| "when the going gets tough, the tough get going" habit. What
| they have in money, they lack in grit. When they are faced
| with a challenge, they habitually say "what can I buy to
| solve this problem?", "who can I consult to help me with this
| problem?", etc.
|
| Contrast that with folks who are working class. They know
| that they don't have the advantage of money. They learn that
| hard work is the behavior that yields the best outcome. They
| put themselves in fields where what you get is proportional
| to what you put in, such as the trades, where working long,
| hard hours can generate quite good income.
|
| When folks who were raised working class are faced with
| adversity, they handle the situation like Boxer from Animal
| Farm: "I will work harder". It's what they know how to do.
| While they don't have copious sums of money to fall back on,
| or other natural advantages, their own work ethic is one of
| the few things that cannot be taken away from them, and so
| they leverage that.
|
| That advantage also comes with disadvantages. Someone who
| works very hard will likely be overly self reliant. They
| might not get as much done as they could have had they spread
| the load across other people. They might burn themselves out,
| injure themselves, work to the exclusion of all other goals
| in life, etc.
|
| These are vast generalizations that obviously won't hold in
| all circumstances, but I think it's useful to illustrate the
| point. People use the tools at their disposal, whether that
| be money or otherwise. Those strategies all have advantages
| and disadvantages. The net result of those is likely visible
| in the outcomes of various people, I'd bet.
| ineedasername wrote:
| Of the people, did any fail?
|
| If so, this is one of the questions that matters most when
| assessing whether or not there was a safety net-- in failing,
| did they either wind up at the destitute/homeless/food-bank
| level, or a mountain of unpaid debt holding back future
| endeavors?
|
| If the ones who met with failure didn't face these things or
| something comparable then they did have safety nets.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I also disagree with the GP (with the definitive explanation;
| it's probably at least partially true), but this:
|
| >> basically all of the successful entrepreneurs and business
| owners I know didn't come from families with a lot of
| resources and didn't have much of a safety net.
|
| is not statisically accurate; you're only looking at
| survivors. The successful Gates/Zucks/Musks might outnumber
| the poor Indian kids; we need both the failure counts and
| some sort of qualitive definition of success/failure (i.e. a
| rich-kid failure is probably not life destroying)
| bobmcnamara wrote:
| Growing up I thought that my family was rich because my
| parents were still together, we owned a home with a
| foundation with help from the bank, and my family was clean.
| It turns out the bar was real low in my hometown.
|
| "...didn't come from families with a lot of resources and
| didn't have much of a safety net" As someone who grew up
| considered both a dirt poor hick by the city slickers and
| simultaneously a carpet-baggin outsider, this is often a
| relative perspective, how do we calibrate against a larger
| population?
|
| These are the sorts of things I picked up on growing up:
| Could they go to college if they wanted to? Did their parents
| go to college? Did they live homeless, apartments, trailers,
| multi family, single family homes, McMansions? 0/1/2 parents
| around?
|
| I suspect HackerNews may have some survivorship bias compared
| to national averages, (and especially where I grew up).
| fragmede wrote:
| That sounds good, but with a safety net, are you really going
| to be hungry enough to make sure your one shot at getting out
| of the ghetto doesn't fail? The entrepreneur that says to
| themselves, if this doesn't work, I'll just ask mom for another
| $300k at St Barts over Christmas doesn't sound like the one
| sleeping under the desk at the office to get the demo ready for
| TechCrunch Disrupt. Or maybe they are (to prove daddy wrong).
| The human condition contains multitudes.
| ikiris wrote:
| Ahh yes, classic HN: "People only succeed/work hard if their
| only other option is death"
| saimiam wrote:
| My wife and I are starting to test this theory. We are
| putting our kid in an expensive school, then starting a
| business to support our lifestyle. If we fail, our kid'll
| have to go to a cheaper school and we'd have lost a few
| years of school fees. If we succeed, yay.
|
| By the time, our are faced with the choice, our kid will be
| embedded in school so ripping them out of it is going to be
| a tough choice.
|
| So, yeah, we're essentially burning our boats and fighting
| to survive.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Don't live above your means because an unexpected event
| is likely to happen. Plus creating a situation where all
| peers are rich and only your kid is not doesn't open the
| doors to future success compared to if they were at their
| peers lifestyle level.
| saimiam wrote:
| We grappled with this too but in the end, our decision
| was influenced by our parents choosing to live beyond
| their means to put us through good schools and college.
| If they could grit their teeth and sacrifice for us, we
| can do the same for the next generation.
|
| Our choice us somewhat made easier because we didn't like
| any of the schools near us except this one. The others
| were focused on exams/results and were larger in size so
| felt more "corporate".
| artur_makly wrote:
| I too have made this choice with my family.. and its one
| hell of a positive force-factor. My mom immigrated from
| Kiev, with nothing and a dream for her son to have a
| better life in NYC. Im now taking the same risks as a
| 5-time entrepreneur..now living in Buenos Aires as a
| single dad. Enjoy the ride - its short - live your dream
| - steer your ship or it will be steered for you.
| saimiam wrote:
| More power to both of us!
| ericjmorey wrote:
| Gates, Bezos, Buffet, Musk all had enough hunger to beat out
| literally everyone else
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| And they also all came from money.
| flag_fagger wrote:
| > doesn't sound like the one sleeping under the desk at the
| office to get the demo ready for TechCrunch Disrupt
|
| For what? Their garbage SaaS that barely works and is just a
| thin veneer for advertisers to gorge on my data?
| clichessuck wrote:
| That's a cliche and it sucks. A safety net and family resources
| correlate with nothing related to entrepeneurship and risk
| taking.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| This is definitely not true. How many people for instance can
| go into journalism and do unpaid internships without family
| support?
|
| The entire idea of most entrepreneurs pulling themselves up
| by their bootstraps in tech is a myth. Out of all of major
| tech companies now, how many of the founders came from
| disadvantaged backgrounds?
| augusto-moura wrote:
| Safety net and resources correlates heavily in almost all
| aspects of your life, having a better life helps immensely in
| any project you do in your life, including entrepreneurship
| 1659447091 wrote:
| > A safety net and family resources correlate with nothing
| related to entrepeneurship and risk taking
|
| You might be on to something, just look at the examples here.
| Being successful in tech and a well-known risk taker seems
| strongly related to having a 4-5 letter last name. Bezos,
| Brin, Dell, Gates, Page, Jobs, Musk, Thiel...Zuckerberg, okay
| an outlier, but everyone just says Zuck -- so tossup? _/ s_
| ryandrake wrote:
| It's like a baseball game. Most people are benched their whole
| lives. They never get a chance at the plate. More privileged
| people with a lucky combination of the right family, the right
| education, the right timing, and the right opportunity get an
| at-bat, and they'll either strike out, or hit the ball. A few
| very lucky people will get to stand at the plate maybe once or
| twice more.
|
| The wealthy get infinite at-bats. They get to stand at the
| plate for however long they want, and swing and swing until
| they get their home run. I worked with a founder like this. He
| would always talk about his business's humble beginnings,
| starting from a garage and so on--you know the story. What he
| would neglect to admit was this was like his 7th try. Every
| time he failed, he'd just chill on his family's couch, dreaming
| up his next startup idea.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| I think it was _Outliers_ (Malcolm Gladwell) that talked
| about a similar concept as well. Ignoring the 10k hour thing,
| it also talks abut small compounding advantages that later
| add up to more opportunity (for those that take it).
|
| To go with the sports analogy, (paraphrasing, been awhile
| since I read it) it mentions how birth date coinciding with
| the youth sport season was a strong determiner of success at
| that sport because being ~11 months older in the same age
| group meant they were bigger faster more experienced and
| would be played more, compounding increases in skill.
|
| There was also a similar concept floating around about darts,
| where the poor get maybe one dart to throw, middle class a
| few and wealthier get many. But I can't remember where I saw
| or read that
| avensec wrote:
| Thanks for the book mention. Adam Grant also talks about
| the age-group concept, but leans on it for a different end,
| in _Hidden Potential_.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| The description sounds like a part 2 or updated
| approach/angle to _Mindset_ (Carol Dweck), a book that
| made a changing impact when I first read it, but reading
| the updated edition years later left me wanting more. I
| had also read a couple of Adam Grant 's earlier books and
| enjoyed them, will definitely check out _Hidden
| Potential_.
| Fnoord wrote:
| Baseball isn't popular world-wide. The most popular game
| here is football (that sport which USA calls soccer).
|
| Darts would be a funny way to make the analogy. It is very
| much a sport performed by people from the low class, since
| it is relatively easy to perform and practice in pubs. But
| you still need to have some money to buy a beer at a pub,
| ie. it ain't the homeless playing. The most poor people can
| barely afford their rent, and work off their ass doing so.
| Single mother with three jobs has near 0% to start a
| successful business.
| itsalwaysgood wrote:
| I'm not sure why analogies are needed.
|
| There's an old saying: Time is money. Flip that around:
| Money is time.
|
| If you have money, you have more time, more opportunities
| to try things in order to find success.
|
| You can read all about how to play an instrument, or how
| a bike works, but you'll never learn to ride or play
| without time to practice.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| This is not true. No matter how many different teams I try out
| for, I as a 51 year old short male with a limp will never be a
| star basketball player or ever make it to even the D leagues.
|
| There are plenty of people who tried repeatedly to "succeed" in
| their own company and failed. Let's say I did try to start my
| own company at 22 10x and spent 3 years at each one. I'm now 52
| and would have been better off just working those 30 years and
| saving and investing with a lot less stress
| busymom0 wrote:
| I think the level of success one wants also require having a
| check for delusion and realism. If a "51 year old short limp"
| thinks they are going to be a star basketball player, they
| are delusional and no longer realistic.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| How many people right here on HN have you seen over the
| years who built something and had no idea about marketing
| or a go to market strategy or knew anything about sales?
|
| That's the equivalent of a 51 year old with a limp not
| being self aware enough to know that I don't have the
| skills to be a basketball player just because I can
| dribble.
| nosianu wrote:
| So you agree with the parent commenters actual point and
| counter-example, great!
| ipaddr wrote:
| You as a short 51 year old could create your own league. Be a
| star. But no you cannot play in other leagues with younger
| players.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| See my other comment about being able to create a product
| and not having a go to market strategy or sales is like
| thinking just because I can dribble doesn't mean I would
| succeed in the NBA.
| KronisLV wrote:
| > Let's say I did try to start my own company at 22 10x and
| spent 3 years at each one. I'm now 52 and would have been
| better off just working those 30 years and saving and
| investing with a lot less stress.
|
| Some people would succeed eventually, others wouldn't. I
| think it's really hard to effectively gauge what the chances
| are cause you'll see a lot of survivorship bias and a bunch
| of grifters with courses and blogs and stuff that try to pass
| it off as a reproducible skill.
|
| I wonder what dataset would show real world outcomes well,
| especially since failed startups won't be catalogued as well
| as people trying to enter the dining business and most of
| them going under.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| At 52, how large would my success have to be to make up for
| all of the years and compounding I could have made just
| working at a 9-5?
| KronisLV wrote:
| Depends on the 9-5 and the country you work in.
|
| If you'd work for decades in the Baltics, let's not even
| assume just software development, in absolute terms you
| wouldn't make that much: the median salary is below 2k
| EUR per month, the taxes also make a dent, as do the
| expenses.
|
| You can look at the mean disposable income figures for
| Latvia here, for example: https://data.stat.gov.lv/pxweb/
| en/OSP_PUB/START__POP__MI__MI...
|
| Effectively, the savings rate for most of the households
| is pretty bad: https://eng.lsm.lv/article/economy/economy
| /23.11.2023-latvia...
|
| So with living relatively frugally and having 1000 EUR of
| disposable income per month, and a similarly optimistic
| savings rate of 5%, each month you'd be able to put away
| about 50 EUR, or 600 EUR per year. You can calculate how
| that might compound with investments but you're putting
| away 6k per decade.
|
| Obviously it's better for software developers, but there
| might also be unexpected expenses along the way, and so
| on but the overall trajectory is clear - depending on the
| life circumstances, working a 9-5 will ensure you live
| pretty poorly and that might lead to higher risk
| tolerance for entrepreneurship (or crime, go figure).
|
| As for those born (or living) in a prosperous country,
| good for you! The equation shifts there a whole bunch, as
| well as depending on class or other opportunities.
| LPisGood wrote:
| Out of curiosity (not accusation, I promise) how did you make
| it?
| nine_k wrote:
| If your energy is finite (which is normally the case), the
| effect may also depend on the energy per shot you spend. A
| birdshot allows you to hit great many possible targets, but
| only very weakly. A buckshot hits fewer targets, but packs a
| bit more punch. A FMJ bullet shot from a sniper rifle allows
| you to hit an exact target with a great force, but you have to
| choose carefully.
|
| What worked for me best was looking around a lot, identifying a
| few worthy targets, and aiming well.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| The key ingredient is the courage to try, not the safety net.
| Countries lauded for their strong safety nets are not
| overflowing with people taking ambitious risks. Often quite the
| opposite; the strong safety net reflects a cultural aversion to
| risk.
|
| People with the courage to try don't need a safety net to do
| it. In practice they seem to be almost inversely correlated.
|
| An important aspect not mentioned is feeling like you will be
| adequately rewarded if your calculated risks pay off. This
| seems to be more pertinent than safety nets in practice.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| Look at the founders of the top 100 most valuable companies
| in the US. How many of them came from poverty?
| musebox35 wrote:
| That is insightful. Courage to take risks means higher
| standard deviation in outcomes, more visible successes, but
| also more hard failures. Risk averse cultures have more
| stable outcomes, no big successes, but also less financially
| crippling failures. A personal or social safety net may or
| may not make you risk averse. Taking semi-calculated risks
| seems like a skill that needs to be learned for successful
| entrepreneurship.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > This is why having a safety net and resources to try again is
| so powerful.
|
| The idea of a safety net is a silly idea. The whole world had
| very little safety net just 100 years ago, and we still managed
| fine to make progress and to get out of poverty (on average).
|
| On the contrary, when you know you have very little safety net,
| you tend to try harder and to persevere a lot more.
| blharr wrote:
| > The idea of electricity is a silly idea. The whole world
| had very little electricity just 100 years ago. and we still
| managed fine to make progress
|
| This is just an argument from tradition and not even a good
| one. It's debatable (and maybe impossible to prove) if it's
| even true. 100 years ago, the global economy fell into a huge
| decline that led to more global safety nets. Then, were there
| even less safety nets 50 years ago? And did that lack of
| existence not hinder progress?
|
| > you tend to try harder
|
| Is there any actual evidence for this? If I don't have a
| social net, I can't do anything about it. I'm not going to
| try harder at my risky, innovative product. I'm going to give
| up and do something 'safe' that only marginally increases
| economic output.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| Would you like a golden sticker?
| mantas wrote:
| If safety net was the key ingredient, European startups should
| killing it. And yet US without a safety net is doing so much
| better.
| ido wrote:
| not necessarily how inherently good you are
|
| That said, being inherently good also helps. I know (several)
| people who knocked it out of the park with literally their
| first attempt out of university in their early 20s. It wasn't
| just luck, they are genuinly unusually talented.
| blharr wrote:
| Sure, but this argument will never mention those that were
| just as good that failed. Simply to selection bias.
| baxtr wrote:
| You need to have the money, the energy, and patience to
| experiment until you get it right.
|
| Money: do it while you're young and don't need a lot. Or get
| first rich. Or collect enough money on a dream.
|
| Energy: again being young helps. Having 2 smalls kids and old
| parents doesn't.
|
| Patience: that's the more esoterical part. It's hard to know
| when to keep on grinding and when to quit.
| lazy_afternoons wrote:
| Completely Agree.
|
| Both Romans and Mongols have lost/retreated many battles. They
| just had to regroup and raise another army over and over again.
| Some of their opponents could not even afford the war even
| after winning over them multiple times.
|
| The other sides simply were more fragile, where you were
| defending and once your city falls, you are done.
|
| Avoid risk of ruin. Keep the ability of taking multiple shots
| with upside in your favor.
| breppp wrote:
| It's interesting how the American narrative changed from "hard
| work will make you succeed" to "only privilege will make you
| succeed".
|
| I think the newer iteration is just setting the country for
| failure and is an excuse why being lazy is okay
| gota wrote:
| How is (the assumption one needs) trying multiple times
| "lazier" than once?
| breppp wrote:
| The underlying subtext if I read it correctly is I had a
| lot of chances because I was lucky to be born into a
| specific background
|
| when you start subscribing to determinism (i was ordained
| by my parents to succeed), the logical next step is not to
| try hard
| ericmcer wrote:
| I dunno... based on having worked for ~10 small to midsize
| companies now and getting to interact frequently with the
| founders at almost all of them, I wouldn't say a safety net was
| the common thread.
|
| They were however all highly driven, a bit sociopathic,
| insanely confident and had some kind of chip on their shoulder.
| A few wanted to "beat daddy", some had wealthy wives and wanted
| to fit in with their in-laws, and others just seemed mad at
| something or someone in their industry and wanted to outdo
| them.
|
| The #1 factor for success imo is being angry with reality and
| being arrogant enough to think you should impose your will on
| it. People who are given infinite chances will just fail a few
| times and settle into a safe life.
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| Not sure I 100% agree. First: you can temper you ambition and
| thus the risk. You do not need to go ALL IN for almost
| anything. It may take longer or be fractional vs. the initial
| ambitions but probably also far more realistic. Second: the
| counter example of succeeding because you NEED to; the "burn
| the ships!" approach. If you know you can fail it inevitably
| tempers your efforts too. You might not want to do this if
| you're the sole bread winner for an entire family, but when
| you're young and independent? Maybe. Combine this with the
| first and I think there's lots of paths to success.
| stego-tech wrote:
| Needed this today. Apparently the HN hive mind agreed.
|
| All it takes, is for one to work out.
| throwaway150 wrote:
| I thought HN is supposed to upvote articles that gratifies one's
| intellectual curiosity. Does this article gratify intellectual
| curiosity? I don't understand why these shallow feel-good
| articles devoid of any intellectual curiosity always get upvoted
| to the top! There are so many high effort, substantive articles
| at https://news.ycombinator.com/newest that nobody upvotes!
| yehoshuapw wrote:
| because even when it isn't why people come here, and if there
| was too much of it you may be right - a message which brings up
| a smile or warm feeling is enough for people to be thankfull
|
| and that is a good thing
| throwaway150 wrote:
| Obviously the article is voted to the top. So the the lurkers
| at /newest and the general HN audience must like this. Still
| I wish though that upvoters stuck to the HN guidelines of
| upvoting stuff that really gratifies one's intellectual
| curiosity, not just some feel-good piece. There is no
| shortage of other places where I can find feel-good articles.
| I want HN to stick to HN guidelines.
|
| This is all the more sad for me because among all the spam,
| many high effort articles get posted to /newest but many
| don't get the upvotes. These shallow, feel-good articles
| always get the upvotes. I guess it takes more time to read
| and appreciate a high effort article. So I understand why
| this happens. But ...
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| I submit articles personally that I think will start
| interesting conversations. I didn't submit this one. But I
| suspected it would go in the direction of trying to start a
| company - which it did. That is entirely on brand for a site
| run by a VC company.
|
| Mission accomplished.
| famahar wrote:
| The blog post is simple but it was enough of a good prompt to
| spark an interesting discussion. Sometimes the comments expand
| the depth of an idea and that's where the meat of curiosity
| thrives.
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| I'm confused. This just seems like feel-good bullshit advice that
| only works for people in extremely good circumstances.
|
| There's a false equivalence between -
|
| "All it takes is for one to work out."
|
| and the following:
|
| - "You don't need every job to choose you. You just need the one
| that's the right fit."
|
| - "You don't need every house to accept your offer. You just need
| the one that feels like home. "
|
| The latter assumes that _every_ attempt you make has a chance at
| being "the right fit", "the one that feels like home". That is
| not the way things works for 99% of us.
| colecut wrote:
| Unless you interpret 'working out' as being 'the right fit',
| then it comes together pretty nicely
| phkahler wrote:
| And its always the last one you try. Just like every lost item is
| found in the last place you look :-)
| throwaway643384 wrote:
| The "one that works out" can also give you a misrepresentation of
| how the world works and a false sense of how lucky one should
| expect to be over a long period of time.
|
| At an earlier point in my life, I had been applying to many well-
| known big tech companies right out of school (not a top school
| either). I never got a reply from any of them so I ended up
| accepting a local job with a non-tech company after months of
| searching.
|
| But I didn't give up my hopes and kept applying to big tech, and
| while I did manage to get the occasional interview with some
| mediocre companies or the random startup, I also miserably failed
| all of them too.
|
| At some point during my long period of despair at never getting a
| better job, my very top pick (and arguably one of the best tech
| companies in the world at the time) reached out to me. Even more
| miraculously, I somehow passed their interview (the only tech
| interview I passed in the prior year) and accepted a job there.
|
| I _really_ enjoyed working there. Some of the best years of my
| life. And my performance reviews were great too, so the imposter
| syndrome from having failed so many tech job interviews sort of
| faded into the background. But after a while, perhaps due to the
| "hedonic treadmill" mentality, I thought I could do better. So I
| left to join a startup.
|
| Well, the startup failed, as startups tend to do, but what I
| didn't expect and what caught me off guard was that I was now
| back in the same situation I was in right after graduating from
| college. Don't get me wrong--having "the name" on my resume now
| meant I could get at least one chance at an interview about
| anywhere. But much like the first round that I tried to forget
| about, I once again failed all the interviews.
|
| Unfortunately, this second time around never procured a "get out
| of jail free" card.
|
| So I guess my lesson is: 1) there's a lot of luck involved in
| these things, 2) if life gives you a winning lottery ticket at
| some point, don't throw it away for the chance to win an even
| bigger lottery, and 3) that famous saying about "the only actions
| regretted are those not taken" is absolutely, totally wrong--
| almost all of my regrets in life relate to taking some action I
| shouldn't have rather than inaction.
| Sevii wrote:
| A lot of people experienced that during the 2020 boom. The
| lucky break wasn't a lucky break it was just a huge hiring
| boom. Once that's over the status quo returns.
| throwaway643384 wrote:
| My lucky break occurred many years before the pandemic, but
| after the original dotcom boom. Companies were neither hiring
| nor firing like crazy.
| _michaelhuang wrote:
| It just sounds like you are in a middle of another journey my
| friend.
| EdNutting wrote:
| Corollary: Choosing _not_ to do something is as much an action
| as choosing _to_ do something. Which shines a bright light on
| the meaninglessness of the phrase "the only actions regretted
| are those not taken".
| Archonical wrote:
| There's also the option of choosing to not commit to either
| action. One stays in the status quo without choosing it, but
| since agency is negatively correlated with regret and no
| agency was used, the 'choosing not to do something' option
| probably has a higher chance of being regretted.
| kccqzy wrote:
| Well with the style of tech interviews we have, luck is
| definitely involved. Some questions are simply my style (I like
| graphs and dynamic programming for example), and I'm lucky if
| the interviewer happens to choose these. But I don't like for
| example two pointers problems.
|
| And also I've long ago dissociated my tech interview
| performance with my actual performance indicated by performance
| reviews.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| I have thrown away (in hindsight) amazing lottery tickets a
| hilarious number of times. Despite that poor track record, I
| have been able to grind out an enviable life sans lottery
| ticket. Showing up and being hungry is a huge part of the game.
| I've also had to reboot my career relatively late, which isn't
| a place you want to be but it isn't a death sentence if you
| don't want it to be.
|
| While there is an element of survivor bias to my story, people
| always underestimate the role of stamina and willingness to
| grind when no one else would. It is a very long game but so is
| life. I was never looking for the easiest way, and in hindsight
| I think that produced more satisfying results even if the path
| had much lower lows.
| mmarian wrote:
| Thanks for writing this, I'm in a similar position and feel the
| same way.
| Vishon wrote:
| This is a super honest story and I think a lot more people
| relate to it than they admit. The part that hit me most is how
| easy it is to mistake a single lucky break for a permanent
| trend. Tech careers are not linear at all. They look more like
| random spikes mixed with plateaus.
|
| A few thoughts from seeing this play out around me:
|
| Interviews are insanely volatile. You can be the same exact
| engineer on two different days and get completely opposite
| outcomes, just based on the question draw or the interviewer's
| style.
|
| Brand name helps but doesn't guarantee anything. A big tech
| logo on the resume gets you callbacks, but it doesn't magically
| make you good at the modern interview format. You still have to
| perform in the moment.
|
| The hedonic treadmill is real. Once you get into a top company,
| it's wild how quickly "this is amazing" turns into "I can
| probably do better." It tricks you into thinking you're always
| one jump away from a better life.
|
| Leaving a stable spot is always a gamble. People romanticize
| the jump to a startup but never talk about the reset it causes
| when things don't go perfectly.
|
| Failing interviews after success hits harder than failing
| before success. Before, you can blame lack of experience.
| After, you have to confront the randomness of the whole system.
|
| Your point about regrets is also spot on. Not every action is
| worth taking. Sometimes staying put is the smartest strategic
| move even if it feels boring.
|
| Something that helped me personally was learning how to control
| the chaos during interviews. Most people actually know enough
| to pass, but nerves kill them or they blank at the wrong
| moment. I ended up using a tool during interviews that gives me
| hints and guard rails so I don't freeze up under pressure. It's
| called StealthCoder and it just overlays explanations on my
| screen quietly. It doesn't fix skill gaps but it stops those
| panic moments that cost you the round. It's allowed because it
| just runs locally like any overlay and doesn't interact with
| their systems.
|
| But yeah, your story is a good reminder that careers hinge on
| timing, mindset and a bit of luck. Stability is underrated and
| chasing "more" has real risk attached. A lot of people only
| learn that the hard way.
| nerdsniper wrote:
| > It's allowed because it just runs locally like any overlay
| and doesn't interact with their systems.
|
| This is account is spamming - as in advertising on HN. This
| software is definitely not "allowed" during any typical
| leetcode interview. The website is very explicit and upfront
| about this being cheating.
|
| They're also posting during the middle of the day in the
| country where the company making this product is
| headquartered, and it's 4AM in the country where the vast
| majority of HN users are.
| chegra wrote:
| You still only need one. Keep trying.
| queenmab wrote:
| I thought there was something very odd about the way this was
| written.
|
| >Don't get me wrong--having "the name" on my resume now meant I
| could get at least one chance at an interview about anywhere
|
| Never mind, it's been written or at least edited by ChatGPT.
| throw-qqqqq wrote:
| That is a horrible, unfounded accusation!
| John23832 wrote:
| Lol same. Left a great tech company where was doing well to
| pursue the startup life. "If I work hard, I will make it".
| Startup failed, and the same prior opportunity hasn't come
| around. Such is life.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Bait & switch, though.
|
| "All it takes is for one to work out." is not the same as "You
| just need the one [job] _that's the right fit._ " or "You just
| need the one [house] _that feels like home._ " or "You just need
| _the one_ [life partner]. "
|
| Author's examples are, spiritually, the opposite of their
| friend's advice - in fact, "all it takes is for one to work out"
| is something often said to people who lost hope _because they got
| lost being too picky_.
| QuantumGood wrote:
| Simplifications always leave something out. It's like the three
| body problem: people think one factor matters most, and one
| other factor controls it. But once they realize there is a
| third factor that alters one or the first two, or mediates
| between them, it gets more complicated.
| sdqali wrote:
| The article is good, but I am more impressed by how the author
| has been posting every day since May 12th, 2008.
| nebezb wrote:
| All it takes is one.
| j45 wrote:
| Beautiful piece and reminder.
|
| If you're never done growing, you're never done peaking, nor ever
| really done trying.
|
| One working out can lead to the next way.
|
| Wishing everyone well who this piece resonated with.
| otras wrote:
| On a much less optimistic dark humor note, this is the same
| argument in _If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies_ about a
| superintelligent AI emerging and being a threat to humans.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_Anyone_Builds_It,_Everyone_...
| wacper wrote:
| This is a great approach! After every opportunity that closed on
| me another arose, and it always was the better one.
|
| Through these experiences I totally agree, and try to apply it to
| life, but it's hard, even knowing that it's true. How cool is it
| for every college, person, job offer, scholarship to want you?
|
| Even though we're looking just for "the one" it's very hard for
| me to mitigate the feeling of getting rejected, even knowing it
| was not "the one". Rejection generally hurts, when you care about
| the goal
| jh00ker wrote:
| Taking a break from studying for my interview in two days at a
| FANG company, I checked Hacker News and this article was at the
| top. I've been studying for this interview harder than any of the
| others in the past. I feel well-prepared, but there's always the
| luck factor. I hope this is a sign that this interview will be
| the one to work out!
| throwaway894345 wrote:
| It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize this wasn't
| about exercising.
| einpoklum wrote:
| I think it would be better if it were about exercising; it's
| more useful advise that way.
|
| So, all it takes is for you to work out: You may not get into
| that grad school / that job, but you'll be healthier and you'll
| feel less depressed. In fact, even if you're in grad school,
| it's pretty good advice for coping avoiding burnout, coping
| with impostor syndrome etc.
| EdNutting wrote:
| Unfortunately, the "one" which accepts you, is no guarantee of it
| being the one which "works out" (in the short or long term). My
| experience is now 4x "found one that ultimately doesn't work out"
| (each lasting 2 to 3 years).
|
| I'm now taking time out to try to figure out how to escape the
| confines of the career path I've taken to find something
| different.
|
| Open to suggestions of entirely different careers that I could
| switch to that might have higher odds of not being toxic rat-
| races full of people telling lies and bullshit just to survive.
|
| But broader experience suggests the world of work just sucks
| these days (and yes, it's these days - our parent's generation
| had a brief period of doing 9-to-5 jobs which paid well enough to
| afford homes, have families and social lives and holidays. We
| don't get that now.). No wonder large numbers of my generation
| are dropping out of the workforce...
| chamomeal wrote:
| I think any huge tech company or private equity owned company
| will be a rat race. There are plenty of tech jobs that don't
| fall under that umbrella. They might not pay as well, but
| they're out there!
| EdNutting wrote:
| Genuinely, no sarcasm or whatever intended, I just want to
| broaden my horizons: what tech jobs did you have in mind? :)
| netbioserror wrote:
| I personally got one of those jobs at a smaller, "non-tech"
| (read: engineering) company, quite close to where I grew
| up. Got to pick my language and tools, have ownership of my
| slice of the product, live a very comfortable and flexible
| 9-to-5 where they gave me the room to do my best work. Pays
| maybe half of the typical inflated tech salary. But I'm
| doing well for myself.
|
| My only issues at this point are 1) my life has bucket list
| things to check off that have nothing to do with work, 2)
| I'm running out of super interesting things to work on and
| entering a sort of maintenance mode on my program, 3) the
| old guard, who were all retirement age, are checking out
| for a new generation, with a new direction.
|
| So all that being said, I've been looking for work far
| afield in places closer to my bucket list items. Hopefully,
| I can find another smaller, specialized company that needs
| a programmer with my skillset, because this experience has
| been fantastic.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| I'm in data analytics for government. It's got a ton of
| meaning, tons of ceiling for skill and talent, and very
| dedicated kind colleagues. No rat race except who can help
| people the most, not a legit title haha, but there are 2X
| analysts that inspire me. We also need DBA and tech team to
| power up our systems :)
| tasuki wrote:
| I work for a small local company. There's ten people,
| basically all working some kind of part time. The work is
| interesting, the pay is peanuts, the atmosphere is great.
| Thank god it's Monday tomorrow!
| phito wrote:
| Maybe move to a different country with a better work culture? I
| don't know where you are from, I'm from Belgium and the only
| truly toxic corporate places I've seen here were the ones
| managed by Americans.
| manicennui wrote:
| This is also the strategy of groups trying to pass oppressive
| legislation.
| pgt wrote:
| I read this as: all you have to do is work out.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| That's what it says.
| PyWoody wrote:
| Right? I thought the article was going to be about how
| constructive having even a simple daily workout can be for
| mental health.
|
| After reading the article, I like my version better.
| twodave wrote:
| Write it, then, and post it up here!
| duckmysick wrote:
| Sort of related - 10k pushups and other silly exercise quests
| that changed my life:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45456188
| anonu wrote:
| The corollary to this is "keep walking"... As my mom always tells
| me.
| chanux wrote:
| If you are going through hell etc.
| hereforcomments wrote:
| This St Peterburg paradox. I've just learnt it from Veritasium's
| last video.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Petersburg_paradox
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| "Is this where you stop?"
| anttiharju wrote:
| Reminds me of AlphaGo
|
| It didn't try to maximise by how much it won, but just that it
| won. Apparently it changed the meta for human pkayers.
|
| If you have the time for it, the movie/doc is worth watching
| https://youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6gekU1Y
| LunicLynx wrote:
| Another saying i repeat to myself, which if gotten from a friend.
|
| You have already lost, you can only win.
| JustExAWS wrote:
| I agree with his sentiments and his examples. But my fear is that
| on a place like Hacker News, people might not understand the
| difference between his advice and trying to have a successful
| startup.
|
| > _You don't need every job to choose you. You just need the one
| that's the right fit._
|
| When I'm applying for a job, I can apply for multiple jobs at
| once and interview for multiple jobs over a a few weeks. It's
| especially easy when I am both interviewing and working remotely.
| I don't have to make excuses to leave work during the middle of
| the day or worse case fly out for an interview.
|
| The same is true for buying a home, I can put bids in for
| multiple homes - or in my case just have my homes built in 2003
| and 2016. I know the world is different now.
|
| > _You don't need every person to want to build a life with you.
| You just need the one._
|
| This is one place where of course you can shoot your shot at
| multiple potential partners and date often. What you don't want
| to do is try marriage multiple times if it can be avoided. A bad
| marriage will wreck every part of your life and a divorce will
| set you back financially. (Happily remarried for 15 years after a
| horrible first marriage.)
|
| None of his examples are applicable to starting a business. 9/10
| startups fail and even out of those that "succeed" only a small
| number of those have an outsized return for the founder where
| they wouldn't be better off financially working a regular old
| enterprise dev job for those years let alone getting a job at
| BigTech.
|
| VCs can make multiple bets at one time and be more assured that
| they capture the 1/10 startups that succeed than a founder.
|
| There is a huge difference between being able to take multiple
| chances at once in all of those scenarios and being stuck with
| the 1/10 choices you make for multiple years.
| thom wrote:
| A corollary to this, for me at least, has always been: don't try
| to fake your way into an opportunity. Be yourself, let people
| pass on the real you if they want, because you don't want to land
| a job where you can't thrive as yourself. Obviously there's great
| privilege in that and sometimes you need to eat shit in order to
| eat at all, but if you have the option I hope you're able to wait
| for the right fit.
| colecut wrote:
| I read the title and thought it meant that if you just exercise
| everything else will fall into place.
|
| I should probably still try that.
| nextworddev wrote:
| It also takes just one big mistake to really make things
| tougher...
| asdfman123 wrote:
| Maybe you need only one. I need universal adoration! Everyone
| must love me!
| koinedad wrote:
| I basically repeated the same thing to my wife when I was
| transitioning into software engineering. It's so true!
| awesome_dude wrote:
| A (possible) restatement of the oft quoted "They have to be lucky
| all the time, we only have to be lucky once" (albeit only the
| second half)
| einpoklum wrote:
| _You don 't need to buy a lottery ticket every day, you just need
| to buy one on the day you get the winning ticket._
|
| Thanks for the tip buddy!
| ojr wrote:
| all I need is one SaaS to work out, I've built five of them this
| year, the fifth one is the one though, I promise.
| WarOnPrivacy wrote:
| To land at the the author's difficulty level, you need to not
| have chronic life-shifting catastrophes. That is, the sort of
| challenges that slot your life in a place where the long reaches
| are to keep housing and hopefully have food for the kids.
|
| I started out where the author was. Well, roughly. +Kids,
| -Secondary edu. I could and did rise above that. And above 3
| economy shifts that each reset my biz to zero.
|
| I did not rise above my spouse being swapped for an adult with
| profound psych issues. I took on the single dad and caregiver
| roles well enough.
|
| However, I could not overcome the daily sabotage of, well,
| everything. It's like a TV trope where you are shackled to your
| worst enemy. But you have to keep them safe and your loved ones
| safe from them.
|
| It's tough to maintain a job schedule when the police frequently
| call you during the workday (w and w/o CPS). Or when your transpo
| is stolen and can't be replaced.
|
| In short, it's particular tough to pretend to be stable.
| Eventually there are no bridges left to burn.
| chanux wrote:
| Thanks for the kicking back some reality in.
|
| Some of these risks are hard to adjust for. I guess you've got
| to muster all the grit and keep walking.
|
| Also BTW, you've shown enough but let me wish you more strength
| for you. All the very best!
| Barbing wrote:
| How damn hard, sending love
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > I did not rise above my spouse being swapped for an adult
| with profound psych issues.
|
| This is much more common than people in their conditioned
| romanticism will ever acknowledge.
|
| In the economy of the past 15 years, marriage is a much worse
| risk than an expensive education.
| andsoitis wrote:
| This is also vividly demonstrated by life via evolution through
| natural selection.
|
| Life had to spark only once, leading to the subsequent explosion
| in variety and complexity.
| yesimahuman wrote:
| Yep, heard so many no's while building my startup. They mean
| nothing to me now because I got a few yes's when it mattered.
| didip wrote:
| This is what I keep telling my son even though he is still a bit
| too young:
|
| Here in Bay Area, in Silicon Valley, all you need is to try hard
| and get lucky once.
| twodave wrote:
| I've considered some form of grad school a few times, but I
| always came to the conclusion there just wasn't enough value in
| it for a software engineer like me. I don't plan on teaching, and
| I'm not really interested in the "science" of computer science so
| much as the practice of it. Anyone able to validate or challenge
| my assumptions here?
| flat-like-paper wrote:
| The only thing to add here is the value of the network you will
| build. It's very easy for swes to forget that people connecting
| to people is how things happen. Just be careful around cost.
| Speaking from experience, having student loan debt changes the
| range of your vision.
| fragmede wrote:
| If you don't want to do _any_ of the science part of computer
| science then this route may not be one for you to consider.
| However, if we assume that AI is going to be with us in 5
| years, and that it would take you 5 years to get a PhD in an
| AI-related area you _do_ find interesting, and furthermore that
| demand for talent with a PhD in that area has gone up, or
| stayed constant vs demand for general software development
| talent, then, based on that pile of "if"s, while a $100
| million job offer from Meta may not exist in 5 years, it is
| still something to consider.
| throwaway-0001 wrote:
| > You don't need every job to choose you. You just need the one
| that's the right fit.
|
| You mean, the first one to say yes. Tbh seems more like first to
| say yes, not first to be fit and say yes.
|
| > You don't need every house to accept your offer. You just need
| the one that feels like home.
|
| Same here. Is easy to find one to say yes. Hard to be "feels like
| home" && say yes.
|
| > You don't need every person to want to build a life with you.
| You just need the one.
|
| "The one" is hard.
|
| >You don't need ten universities to say yes. You just need the
| one that opens the right door.
|
| Same. What even means "the right door"? How can you even know
| before you got in?
|
| I think it's a bad analogy. At least frame it a more realistic:
| your only need one job to say yes. Might not be the right job but
| it's a job. Same for all other.
| adidoit wrote:
| At-bats have always been the name of the game. That's why if
| you're going to do something risky make sure you build the safety
| net
| jongjong wrote:
| The problem is that the opportunity you need might be a 1 in 100
| lifetimes opportunity...
|
| These days once in a lifetime opportunities are getting
| increasingly rare... This is something that the lucky few do not
| understand because they may pass up on once-in-100-lifetimes
| opportunities just about every single day. The asymmetry of
| opportunities is massive.
|
| Our system is not a level playing field.
|
| No system in the history of humanity has wasted as much human
| potential as our current system. Opportunities are completely
| monopolized.
| tmoertel wrote:
| I think author's use of the word "the" is misleading:
|
| > You don't need every job to choose you. You just need _the_ one
| that's the right fit. [emphasis mine]
|
| You don't need _the_ job that 's the right fit. There's more than
| one. You need _any_ job that fits. (Or that you can make fit
| you.)
|
| So, if you want to size up the search, let _p_ be the probability
| that a typical job you apply for will (1) result in you being
| hired and (2) be a job that fits you. Then the expected number of
| jobs you must apply to before getting hired to a job that fits
| you is 1 / _p_. [1]
|
| Say you think _p_ = 5%. Then, on average, you 'll need to apply
| to 20 jobs to land one that fits you.
|
| How many jobs do you need to apply to have a 90% chance of
| landing one that fits you? If _q_ is the wanted probablity of
| overall success, then the number of jobs _k_ you must apply to is
| given by _k_ = log(1 - _q_ ) / log(1 - _p_ ). So, in this
| example, k = log(1 - 0.9) / log(1 - 0.05) [?] 45 applications.
|
| That's a lot of rejections and ill-fitting jobs before landing
| one that sticks. Which is why it's useful to be persistent _and_
| flexible. Being able to _make_ a job fit can dramatically reduce
| your search.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_binomial_distribution
| bigbluedots wrote:
| At some point you don't need "the one that gives you joy". You
| need the one that pays the bills and feeds the family
| carsonwagner wrote:
| Exactly correct. As a YouTuber, all it takes is one YouTube Short
| to go viral for me, and I'll have hundreds of thousands of
| subscribers overnight. I haven't had anything go seriously viral,
| but my biggest Shorts have resulted in huge subscriber jumps. The
| best advice I ever received was to consistently post for years on
| end. If you have high-quality content, one of those Shorts is
| almost certain to eventually hit the big leagues.
|
| When it does, your life will change in an instant.
| nextworddev wrote:
| "Don't turn your life into a lottery" - Peter Thiel
| cons0le wrote:
| -says the guy that won the lottery
| nextworddev wrote:
| True. He def hit the jackpot with seed round for Facebook
| lol
| phito wrote:
| I've seen plenty of small channels having a one time hit that
| didn't really change anything in the long run
| didgetmaster wrote:
| How many great opportunities are passed up by people waiting for
| the 'perfect' one to come along?
|
| Job offers passed on because it wasn't the perfect fit. Marriage
| chances missed because the perfect soul mate must still be around
| the corner. Good schools rejected because it wasn't their dream
| school.
|
| Luck often accompanies those willing to accept less than perfect
| in many cases.
| andreygrehov wrote:
| I strongly disagree with the author. The mindset they described
| somewhat reminds me of body positivity--excess weight is not good
| for your health, accepting it through a mental shift is a bad
| advice.
|
| Here is my personal advice to whoever reads this comment. Ignore
| everything they say on the internet. Do what works best for you.
| Trust your intuition. Set bold goals. Always learn and strive to
| become better in everything you do.
|
| If you failed an interview, it's perfectly ok to be disappointed.
| Spend a day calling your own self names. It's normal! The very
| next day analyze why you failed, see where you need to improve.
| Rinse and repeat. This will get you whatever the hell you want in
| this life.
| sunkeeh wrote:
| I think you missed the point, he doesn't disagree with your
| points at all, he's just pointing out that you shouldn't stress
| yourself out thinking you have to win them all when actually 1
| is often all you need.
| andreygrehov wrote:
| I'm not sure if the author's perspective aligns with what I
| said.
|
| > You don't need every job to choose you. You just need the
| one that's the right fit.
|
| I don't think anyone expects to pass all the interviews.
| Seriously, who expects that? The right fit of choices is
| often limited. You need to deeply understand your weaknesses
| and strengths to even know what the right fit is. People are
| usually unaware of their own superpowers. Hard work is the
| only thing that pays off. Luck comes to those who are
| prepared.
| globular-toast wrote:
| I agree about body positivity, but the big difference is we are
| talking about _relationships_ here. Whenever it 's a
| relationship, whether it's professional, platonic or romantic,
| sometimes it really is just them. But more often than not it's
| a bit of both, it's up to you to decide whether you want to
| make it about them or make it about you. If it's always about
| them then you'll be that person who only ever meets assholes.
| We all know the truth: you're the asshole.
|
| So yes, reflect and think about what you could do better, but
| don't compromise on your principles or try to be a person
| you're not.
| rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote:
| The article has no connection to body positivity at all. It's
| about storming through a long series of rejections or failures.
| And your entire second paragraph could very well be a
| justification for body positivity itself.
| j7ake wrote:
| This is also the philosophy espoused by Taleb. You want that job
| that involves tinkering, playing, and an option to select
| winners.
| the_real_cher wrote:
| I thought it was about exercising. (which also helps with stress)
| keepamovin wrote:
| Fuck yeah, man. That's great. Thank you for saying that
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| Personally, I do believe and still on the perpetual aim for that
| "You have to be right just once." For me, it is not about the
| "right one(s)." My philosophy is that I should be able to "Walk
| Out" from situations, deals, and options that I picked and be
| ready for the next.
|
| I wrote about Walking Out,[1] but more from a content/digital
| life perspective. I do follow similar thinking with life
| situations too.
|
| I'm neither complaining nor comparing, but hey, life dealt a bad
| enough hand early on. Mother left us when the last of our
| siblings (sister) was barely 6 months old, and father was never
| present. My brothers and I survived by working odd jobs, stealing
| vegetables from neighbors, and running errands for almost
| everyone in the neighborhood. My brother worked repairing
| bicycles, cleaning trucks, and giving up studies so I could
| study. I started teaching the neighbors' kids in my 5th grade and
| paid through school, then worked computer stuff to pay for
| college, and also begged a lot of relatives to supplement for
| food, books, etc. I know what actual starvation meant. It was
| only around my 15th year I learnt that winters can actually be
| warm when I had a sleep-over at my friend's place where they had
| warm blankets that was thick enough.
|
| So, my belief is that things won't work out. Can I Walk Out?
| Well, "The purpose of life is to be defeated by greater and
| greater things."
|
| Way later in life, I realized the neighbors knew about our night
| crawls. That was why they started giving us their vegetable
| garden harvest, and the "we have some extra cooking oil."
|
| 1. https://brajeshwar.com/2025/can-i-walk-out/
| GarnetFloride wrote:
| The trouble is how many times can you try. I tired building 6
| businesses; all failed. I just don't have the resources to try
| again. I've lost too much. I am lucky to have been able to try at
| all. Like that parable floating around about the people and the
| carnival games, the rich own the game, the poor run the games and
| the middle class get a chance or two to play.
| roudaki wrote:
| A writers perspective: I like to pause from time to time and
| thank my talent and my education for training me to the point I
| can trully enjoy difficult classical work. And read it again and
| again when I miss it. Also being able to sit and write for hours
| is pretty incredible on its own.
|
| Yes I have nothing to show for it. No money, no deals, no
| awards... And that upsets me 70% percent of the time. In a
| healthy way, where it just keeps me going back to the desk same
| time every day.
|
| Rest of the time I really enjoy just being able to do it and
| being able to afford the time to do it. As one of the few in my
| family with degree and withouth second job.
| konart wrote:
| Except "work out" is not and state but a process. You don't get a
| person who loves you back and expect it to last a lifetime be
| default.
|
| Same about university or house, or... anything really.
| Havoc wrote:
| Similar to shots on goal concept. Sometimes more tries is the
| answer
| rhubarbtree wrote:
| Was living in a small city for a while during the pandemic.
| Commented to parent that dating scene wasn't going to be good and
| I needed to move to a bigger city. They answered "all you need is
| to meet one person".
|
| I did. Met on an app, turned out they lived round the corner from
| me, we are now married. She is a _very_ unusual person (has to be
| to work with me) and you wouldn't expect her to be in a small
| city, but due to particular life circumstances she had just moved
| there temporarily.
| Puzzled_Cheetah wrote:
| That may be true, but it's also a trap: You can say _exactly_ the
| same thing to someone at a casino with their last PS50 at five in
| the morning. Sometimes, the advice that people give you, if they
| care about you, is that the smart thing to do is to walk away
| from a rough game - and if you don 't, the end can be very bad
| indeed. You are a variable over the search space, and the way
| that you interact with it alters the results that you will get as
| applied to your life:
|
| Making this specific, I used to work in employment advice. As one
| of the things here is a job search, I'll touch on that one: There
| are people who have been applying for jobs for decades. I've met
| many people who haven't been able to get a job in north of twenty
| years. It's obvious that what they're doing will never work out
| for them. There _may_ be one job in the world out there that will
| take them, but just doing a naive search will - in all
| probability - never locate for them that job. The world is too
| large and they don 't have the time to search even a single
| percentage of it. What they need to do is to look at all the
| reasons they're not getting a job and prioritise addressing
| those:
|
| - Do they have all the qualifications and certificates they need
| for their target industry? - Do they have recent relevant
| experience? - Do they have a good CV? - Do they have a decent
| cover letter? - Do they have a good interview?
|
| Now, that's not an exhaustive list, but you get the idea.
|
| The other way in which it's a bad piece of advice is that people
| aren't machines. When you've spent a great deal of time gambling
| and losing then the tendency is for people to seek bigger payoffs
| at higher comparative risks and/or lower comparative chances of
| success. The tendency is for people to be less likely to do the
| things, e.g. volunteering, that will improve their odds as their
| tally of losses increases.
|
| Down thread, raw_anon_1111 posits the position that you've lost
| nothing by trying - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46091837
| - in my experience this is not the case.
|
| People lose time in making the attempts, they lose energy (which
| is perhaps more important than time,) and they lose sight of
| other options - which game they're playing, why they're playing
| it, how they're playing it. It will, in all probability, not work
| out within their lifetimes - and the reason that it won't work
| out is that following this sort of strategy has made them the
| sort of person for whom it is unlikely to do so. Whilst their
| friends went and volunteered, and took concrete steps, they just
| kept trying that same strategy on the assumption that at least
| one was out there for them that met their requirements. And there
| just wasn't. Not in that timespan.
|
| Now, I'm not saying just give up and never try. Reversed
| stupidity isn't intelligence. But if you've been trying to make
| something work out - as a rule of thumb - for six months say, and
| you're not seeing concrete steps towards success - you should re-
| examine your fundamental assumptions. Preferably, if it's
| something high-stakes, with the assistance of a competent third
| party that you trust. Because maybe you're the problem, and maybe
| there's something you can do about it. And you'd best find that
| out now rather than spending 20 years on some warmly meant advice
| that perhaps isn't going to work out for you.
| raw_anon_1111 wrote:
| I have been calling out specifically the difference between
| things you can try in parallel with little to know negative
| consequences - like applying for multiple jobs, going on
| multiple interviews, putting bids in for multiple houses - and
| winning one, and things that you have to do sequentially that
| cost time - like starting a business and failing multiple times
| that take 3-5 years each, cost real money and there are
| opportunity cost.
| Puzzled_Cheetah wrote:
| In the short run, I'd mostly agree with you. Something being
| parallelisable at a low cost lets you do more of it in a
| short space of time, and probably lends itself to what should
| be an earlier decision as to whether to reexamine your
| approach. You're going to have a lot more information earlier
| - all else being equal.
|
| In the mid to long run, however, the costs mount up - however
| small they may start off as. You can make, say, 20 job
| applications a day - (not an uncommon thing to have people do
| if they were on mandated provision) - have a couple of
| hundred open in a few weeks and get nothing back. That takes
| something out of people. People will still spend time from
| finding and making those applications, energy, motivation, an
| awareness of the wider context in which their problem's
| structured....
|
| There's a human component to the problem which generates
| opportunity costs for things that don't seem to have any.
| Like yes, technically, you can put 20 job applications in a
| day and then go and volunteer. But it's the rare person who's
| actually going to have the energy, motivation and awareness
| to do that when they're going hard on a broad search
| strategy.
| anonyfox wrote:
| Seeing the other comments I feel like the luckiest moment of my
| life was meeting my future wife when I was at school with 16 and
| having been together since for 20+ years, through higher
| education and kids and house mortgage and all. Zero drama, mutual
| respect and affection, both still preserving some independence to
| maintain a ,,self", good double income.
|
| Might sound stupid, but this major life area being just a rock
| solid fundament frees up so much energy my peers still struggle
| with nowadays quite often it's insane in hindsight. Everyday life
| costs are lower, some risk taking is possible when someone has
| your back unconditionally and even supports it (as long as not
| going reckless), and a secure home base to return to is something
| I guess even money can't easily buy. Short of being born already
| rich I guess that's a cheat code with similar small odds, and I
| appreciate it.
|
| Then the ,,business opportunities" become just something way more
| relaxed. Not identity level validation attempts or despair to get
| into a better life. Which again allows better judgement calls and
| reintroduces more fun and creativity into many things.
|
| Just my 2c for perspective
| Aldipower wrote:
| Just try to enjoy your life. "The one" is a mindset of seeking
| for a "release". Frankly, this does not sound healthy and I guess
| there are bigger underlying problems.
| victorbuilds wrote:
| Needed to read this. 20 years building software for other people,
| finally launched my own thing a few weeks ago. Most days feel
| like nothing is working. But you only need one thing to click.
| Quiark wrote:
| My dumb ass read it as "all it takes is that you workout", just
| with the more fancy pronoun 'one'
| garyrob wrote:
| If you try 2N times to succeed in ventures which each have a 1/N
| chance of success, as N increases the probability of such as
| success quickly converges on about 86.5%.
|
| (The limit is 1-e^(-2).)
|
| So, if you have a LOT of chances to try things that are highly
| improbable but high upside, your odds are quite good.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > So, if you have a LOT of chances to try things that are
| highly improbable but high upside, your odds are quite good.
|
| But that perfectly highlights why the "startup gamble" is a
| great bet for VCs but a horrible bet for most employees. Let's
| say N is, generously, 50 (i.e. 1 in 50 startups are a
| resounding success, which seems probably a bit over-optimistic
| but reasonable). VCs can easily spread investment around to 100
| startups, but employees get a few swings at bat at most when it
| comes to where they work.
|
| For most things in life, you often just don't have that many
| chances. E.g. most people don't date a hundred people before
| finding their spouse.
| yuturs wrote:
| Did anyone else take this as "all it takes is for one to
| exercise" or am I the only one lol
| programjames wrote:
| Wow, I really dislike this framing of life as a lottery. Yes,
| people can get lucky. You could win the lottery. Statistically,
| someone else will hold the winning ticket, every time. It's even
| worse, because graduate school admissions and startup success are
| correlated between attempts. If you bring a shotgun but you're
| not even aiming at the target, you're never going to hit it.
| dustfinger wrote:
| When I saw the title, I thought it was going to be about exercise
| :-P
| sapphirebreeze wrote:
| DOOM
| ant6n wrote:
| Wolfenstein was pretty successful already. commander Keen did
| okay.
| sheepscreek wrote:
| This is beautifully put. I've heard it in a different context
| which was equally profound for me. While searching for the
| perfect home, after seeing a few, my realtor quipped something to
| the effect of "there is more than one perfect home for you out
| there". I took that to mean that if I have a bunch of choices and
| they all feel right, then I can go with anyone and be content
| with the decision. I can tell myself it was the right call at the
| time.
|
| Why I like the authors interpretation even more is because when
| the chips are down, you just need the thing to work once (in many
| contexts) and that might be your golden ticket. Like the one VC
| that meets you out of a 100, or any of the examples the author
| wrote.
| oars wrote:
| Thank you for sharing this.
|
| Ome of the situations in the article is very relevant to me right
| now.
|
| I'm going to keep reminding myself now:
|
| "All it takes is for one to work out.
|
| And that one is all as I need."
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