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Comment by chrisco255 | Hacker News Reader

Uh, most parents would take their kids back in the event of financial disaster. That's not even rare. Many folks live with their parents until late 20s / early 30s these days.

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This does make the assumption that the parents are doing well enough to be able to support their adult children. There are some situations where the parents need the support of adult children, instead of the other way around.

My personal stance towards high-risk startups changed dramatically a few years ago when I took on a big chunk of responsibility for my parents' retirement. My "nest egg" that could be absorbed in a pre-revenue startup has more or less been transformed into the house they've retired into. Having my first kid a couple of years later only compounded the effect. (They're also mutually-dependent, since my parents provide essential childcare while schools and daycare are shut down due to COVID. My parents not having to work right now is literally a matter of life and death given their age and medical histories.)

Regardless, "smart, sustainable work that will support my family" doesn't really map to the intentionally-accelerated make-or-break pace of most incubators and funds. Nor do those programs naturally align with founders who want to create a solid long-term business working from sound operating fundamentals (positive cashflow, measured and even conservative hiring, working to the team's strengths) instead of chasing the next exploding market and "faking it until you make it".

Coincidentally those safer, longer-term plays are also the ones most likely to actually build generational wealth and financial independence for people starting without either. The lack of a safety net (or the presence of one that you're thoroughly entangled in for others' sake) makes all-or-nothing, giant bets far less tenable when you aren't effectively free from having to worry about mundane details like housing or medical costs. That in turn discourages if not de facto shuts out both the least privileged and those with meaningful resources but too much to lose if it all goes wrong.

That assumption holds for most of the population in European countries, even the poorest ones. In fact it's common for young people to live with their parents a long time.

One has to be either dirt poor or very unlucky not to he able to move back with relatives. This sound like an excuse.

The median wealth of African American households in the U.S. is $35k, vs. $150k for white households.

Yes - most people might be able to move back in with relatives, but among those people who can't, minorities are almost certainly going to be overrepresented, which was OP's point.

The world's quite bigger than the US and its particularities don't apply in most other countries.

Sleep in the couch or basement, food costs very little. That's still a lot of support, means that no matter what you have a place to stay and regroup. Not all parents can do that but most could

can't really do that if your parents share an 800 square foot public housing apartment with your sister and her kids. or if they're in prison, or dead, or abusive, or they threw you out for not conforming to their religious choices, or disowned you for not being cisgender and heterosexual, or or or

Of course not, and that might be the case for 10-20% of the population. But you don't have to be some privileged trust fund kid for your parents to give you a place to stay in the event of financial hardship. That's not rare and let's hope that never becomes rare because I'd shudder a world where parents by and large would not do this for their kids.

> But you don't have to be some privileged trust fund kid for your parents to give you a place to stay in the event of financial hardship. That's not rare

I think the point is that it is rare for people who don't have this fallback option to put all their time and resources behind entrepreneurship (the same applies to post-secondary education), because to do so is actually risky for them. It's not that they're worse at business or have less ambition, which is an extremely common sentiment expressed widely in the US.

Here's the reason I think it would be a problem for an imaginary, abstract incubator (because I don't think YCombinator actually does have this) to have a rule "To apply here you need to have alive parents, who like you, with a spare bedroom".

I think that the 10-20% group you are talking about is likely to have more than its share of not-white people. Maybe it's a small divergence, if we imagine the population of the US to be 50% white and 50% not white, maybe the group of people who can't go back and crash with their parents is 49% white and 51% not white.

OK, so imagine there's a different imaginary incubator with a rule that every applicant has to roll a 100 sided die. If they're white they have to roll a 50 or higher to get in, and if they're not white they have to roll a 51 or higher.

I wouldn't like the "roll a die" rule, I think a lot of people probably wouldn't, but it's ultimately not a heck of a lot different than the "crash with your parents" rule. You are still more likely to fall afoul of both rules if you are not white- or (if you change the dice game) gay, or poor, or marginalized in other ways.

(yes the probabilities are different, not the point)

How is 10%-20% not a problem? Not to mention tens of percentages above that where staying with one's parents is incredibly difficult and/or uncomfortable.

This is the right time to shudder, much as I'm happy that you're in a situation where it seems hard to imagine (or empathize with).

No, but then again in those situations of extreme poverty one probably has bigger problems than not being able to get a start-up off the ground.

And of their parents threw them out or don't otherwise like them that's just bad luck. Some people will not have an easy life, I don't see why we have to make those with loving families feel bad about it.

No one's trying to make anyone feel bad about their loving family. We just don't want it to be a selection criterion for entrepreneurship.

That's exactly what's happening: diminishing others' achievements because they can move back with their parent.

It's not their fault that there's so much misery in the world, nor do they have an obligation to fix it.

In fact three million have done so in the last six months. Including ~2.5 million in Gen Z.

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2020/07/pandemic-...

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article2434685...

I suspect that people living with family until 20s/30s is likely to be much more common than people here expect, and that not doing so is an anomaly of the current age in only certain cultures, with a possible return to norm in the future.

Where are you seeing this kind of a stats? Are you just talking about the US? Remember that were on an online multinational discussion board.

Do you think your perspective is coloured by your own experiences?

Whose isn't?

There are parents with ample incomes and large comfortable homes that will welcome their child with open arms, proud of them for risking everything on a start up and encouraging them to try again.

There are parents with little extra cash and homes without space for permanent guests who are going to accept their children back with some disappointment and disapproval for taking large risks and failing.

Children of the first set of parents are just going to be more comfortable going out and taking chances.

You really need to implement some 2nd level thinking.

It seems to me that you're just taking the logical argument of better safety net --> lower overall risk --> better performance.

In reality the flow I've seen throughout the years is more like:

Big risk of failure --> additional motivation to succeed --> world changing technology.

If you have a safety net and your life is stable, why even take such a big risk like entrepreneurship?

Because the risk is to become homeless and that sounds even scarier than it is in reality. Ive met people who had a stretch of being homeless and they eventually got back on their feet. They were also young.

There are parents with ample incomes and large comfortable homes that will accept their children back with some disappointment and disapproval for taking large risks and failing.

There are parents with little extra cash and homes without space for permanent guests who will welcome their child with open arms, proud of them for risking everything on a start up and encouraging them to try again.

Point being - there are a lot of factors outside of one's control that affects one risk adversity

* having a place to live if you go broke

* a place within some manageable travel distance ( i.e. same state/country/continent )

* a place where you will feel a warm sense of welcome

* a place where you will have creature comforts: a comfortable bed, a private room, an bathroom with minimal wait times

* a place where you don't need to contribute to living expenses, at least not right away and not until you can get back on your feet

* a place which is a good launching point for your next career

* (US) health care

Successful founders I know have all of these - every last one.

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