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Comment by devy | Hacker News Reader

> In this case, being rich or poor is neither necessary nor sufficient since we have plenty of examples of things working out with either of these two things being missing.

You are totally missing the point Matthew Prince is trying to make, that is, you need to have a "safety net" before you can take risks. If one can't even get them fed and not worrying about what the next meal is and where to stay, all bets are off.

If you don't agree with me, name one entrepreneur who has found a startup that exited successfully(IPO or Acquisition) by now and that the founder(s) were living below poverty line or on social welfare. Borrowing money from parents doesn't count as living below poverty does it? Having parents or friends or family to lean onto economically means there is a safety net there.

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I agree with your point. But I think people are looking at the categories differently. You're comparing poverty to middle class, while others are comparing middle class to upper middle class/wealthy. I think Paul G. is saying you don't have to be upper middle class to be a founder. I don't think he's saying you could be living on a park bench with no food and your six kids on Monday, and be a founder on Tuesday.

The lore goes that Airbnb was started because the founders couldn’t pay rent.

According to his talk at startup school this was because he quit his job and moved in with his college friend in San Francisco to start a company. His share of the rent was apparently $1150, so seems fairly likely that he could have made that if he wanted to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPLnfUPBXwA&t=115

That would mean that places where nearly everyone has safety nets (countries with welfare) would have a higher amount of entrepreneurship. That is not the case.

Entrepreneurship seems to strive in harsh do or die conditions like in US or Israel.

This is a well-studied concept in labor and migration economics, but it's not about the "do or die conditions". It has more to do with tax competition and relatively lower wages, which tend to attract entrepreneurship, among other things. That's the prevailing theory, anyway.

"Rowling has lived a "rags to riches" life story, in which she progressed from living on state benefits to being the world's first billionaire author."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling

Oprah's another:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey

those are examples of government safety net though no?

Both answer the parent's "name one" challenge question. I named two :-)

Both Rowling nor Winfrey took routes to financial success that are more open to poor people than starting a startup is, but it's true that in 1998, 23 years into her career, when Winfrey was already world-famous, she co-founded Oxygen Media, which was eventually acquired by NBC for almost an Instagram. So I don't think that fulfills the stated goal of "a startup that exited successfully(IPO or Acquisition) by now and that the founder(s) were living below poverty line or on social welfare".

Neither of them "founded a start-up" while living below the poverty line. Rowling wrote a book in her spare time that eventually got popular. She wasn't putting any money or asking of anyone else's money to fund her book.

Oprah followed the more usual path of "get a job, get promoted, rinse repeat" until she was a household name before she started her own company. Per the article you yourself linked, she was co-anchoring the local evening news at 19. That isn't the same thing as taking a risk on a start-up.

Writing a book while on welfare is certainly a startup. She didn't self-publish the book. The publisher provided the funding to edit, print, market, and distribute the book (which is not trivial money). Rowling pitched the book to several publishers before one decided to fund it.

Oprah bootstrapped herself out of poverty to become a media billionaire. You might say she took the long way by routing through various jobs to get the money, but she still came from poverty, founded companies, and became a billionaire.

> that is, you need to have a "safety net" before you can take risks. If one can't even get them fed and not worrying about what the next meal is and where to stay, all bets are off.

To take the other side of this (not to entirely disagree with you) people have a different attitude toward risk and betting the ranch given the exact same safety net or lack of it. Someone with rich parents may not take the risk (for fear of 'I told you so' or being derided) and someone poor might be quite the gambler and think 'I really don't care if I fail and if I can't feed my family this is just right and the time is NOW!'

> If you don't agree with me, name one entrepreneur who has found a startup that exited successfully(IPO or Acquisition) by now and that the founder(s) were living below poverty line or on social welfare.

Very possible also that the people giving the funding are not aware of a safety net and therefore think the entrepreneur is less bankable because they actually fear for them failing since they know the chance of failure is quite high. So they pass thinking they are doing them a favor. This (per my above statement) would vary with the amount of a gambler the investor is and/or how much of a conscience they have.

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