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Comment by eecc | Hacker News Reader

I’m fed up of these “dog learns to speak” miracle stories when it comes to startups.

No wonder it’s a dysfunctional society if it selects for the most lunatics when it comes to change-makers.

Another rich weirdo on Twitter is complaining about people not “compelled enough” to quit their day job to work on their startup (in USA, which means no more health insurance for you and your family, if you have one.)

What kind of crazy, self harming culture is this? It’s not even Darwinian when it suggests to take huge disastrous gambles to chase rare unicorns!

I tell you, it’s this shit that’s holding back humanity. How many are just locked back into uncomfortable routines because of this barrier?

Is it perhaps the signature of a conservative society, when change requires grotesque sacrifice stories and is controlled by a small elite of gatekeepers?

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The guy is a doctor enrolled in YC. I doubt he'll end up on the street if his startup fails. A large part of other founders are engineers that can walk into a six figure job on relatively little notice.

For all the talk of risking everything, most founders risk time and foregone salary, but not their future. If microsoft had failed, Bill Gates would have re-enrolled at Harvard and graduated a little late.

Your average Joe or Jane that dreams of owning a coffee shop and has to put up their own capital is another story.

You’re inadvertently making the parents posters point. The reason why most founders stem from a demographic that allows them to either find a solid paying job or fall back on (parents, spouses, ...) financial support is that he current way of doing startups selects harshly for exactly this. No one else can afford that risk and gamble. If you’re single, your startup fails and you have to move in to your parents place for a while, that’s tough luck. If you have a family, a few kids and maybe parents that rely on your financial support, a single dry month without income may spell disaster.

The current way of doing things self-selects for types willing to put in crazy hours and with access to money.

Very good observations. I think it partly explains why innovation is so hard in places where people live hand to mouth. It is simply excludes those demographics from participating in innovation and changing status quo.

This just in: having kids reduces your life-maneuverability, precluding you from embarking in some kinds of projects! :P

> If you have a family, a few kids and maybe parents that rely on your financial support, a single dry month without income may spell disaster.

Sounds like you are asking for all companies to be stable and reliable sources of income. That wouldn't make any sense.

I actually agree with a lot of what you're saying. I'm working at a non-SV start up, and we've made many efforts to create a "normal" work environment: paying everyone at least enough to stay alive and out of debt, leaving at 5 and trying to reduce the ammount of extra-time people have to put in...

But we also realize the ways in which this is limits us, and I totally understand that when someone needs a breakthrough innovation or to fix a very hard problem, extraordinary sacrifices may have to be made. I know other startups working in the more SV/crunch style and honestly it probably makes sense for them.

Being willing to go this far for what you believe (or may be for the money you expect to make) has value.

Being able to go this far of course is very dependent on your lot in life (which is something we should work against, with a social safety net that enables people from all wealth levels), and also on the decisions you made before (like having kids; which I don't know we can be doing all that much about).

(I hope I made any sense, mondays are bad for my english-writing skills.)

> The current way of doing things

Is there a realistic alternative? Sure, universal basic income eventually, but that's not practical at the moment.

Is there a realistic alternative?

I read a lot on entrepreneurship during 19th century and early 20th century US. My limited understanding: in those days entrepreneurs came from much wider range of demographics. In other words, entry barriers were much less during those days.

I mean many people start bodegas, restaurants, etc. I imagine that's more akin to 19th century entrepreneurship and still is by far the most prevalent form of entrepreneurship today (only like 1.3% of businesses are created in the Bay area and 1.1% of the population lives there).

Scandinavian countries? Entrepreneurship thrives when you can afford to try without risking absolutely everything.

See: https://www.inc.com/magazine/20110201/in-norway-start-ups-sa...

Agreed. When I quit my day job to start a company, I had savings to last me another 2 years. My plan B was to get back into a 9-5 job if things didn't pan out.

You do hear horror stories (like that indie developer who quit his day job to make a game and went broke), but that has more to do with little to no planning for plan B.

Being able to save for 2 years alone is a massive endeavor for most people. This usually means one or more of: 1. living far below means for years 2. delaying life events (marriage, house, grad school, etc.) 3. having low enough unexpected expenses to make that fund last for 2 years.

I basically couldn't make it work for various reasons related to being married and needing to have some health insurance that costs over $1.1k / mo. Meanwhile, if my spouse has the privilege of a job with decent health insurance, the expense plummets to $400 / mo which makes a huge difference.

The more realistic route for most people is to work part-time on your projects perhaps taking years longer than if you were to have quit and worked full-time and to quit your job when one of them pans out to being viable. This approach tends to work substantially better for non-business ventures like writing, performance art, etc. Look at all the middle-class / lower income writers that worked awful jobs for years to make ends meet but kept writing. Most of them had 9-to-5 jobs but for a lot of software jobs that pay into the six figure range, they are far, far more demanding of you mentally than waiting tables (although physical exhaustion absolutely affects mental ability, too). This level of work, however, is probably what it takes to be an entrepreneur without much means given that even those with means oftentimes have to work so much for even a small chance at a business opportunity.

>>For all the talk of risking everything, most founders risk time and foregone salary, but not their future.

Not always true.

Missed salaries (and therefore savings) early in life translate to massive losses later when you take into account lost compound interest over 30+ years.

The other thing is that working insane hours to get a startup off the ground can cause depression, burnout, a host of health problems, etc. Some people never recover from these regardless of their credentials or any additional opportunities they come across.

I'm at the point with my side project where there aren't enough hours in the day to do everything that needs doing. I work 9 hours a day, then come home and have a long list of product development and hamfisted marketing tasks, which I can never get done.

Early on, when it was all just code, my spare time was enough. Now, I would seriously quit the day job if I could (still at $0 Revenue after 6 weeks of being up and running - trying to get the word out, but it's harder to get noticed on the internet than it used to be), but I have a family (who needs health insurance). So, I'll keep sacrificing sleep.

the most successful startups (in term of numbers that don't fail) are those where you sack your boss and do a better job, not where you create a new industry or disrupt markets.

That's why your boss makes you sign a non-compete, specifically banning you from starting a competing business :)

when the boss knows what he's doing :)

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