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Comment by Invictus0 | Hacker News Reader

Have you ever met business owners? They're not all that smart

I think most successful business owners are above average intelligence, but they’re also frequently really blinkered - they know a lot about something but almost nothing about a lot of other stuff, if it hasn’t come up in their path. It’s such a noticeable lopsidedness that I almost wonder if it’s a kind of prerequisite for being so foolish as to start a business.

The main criteria for becoming a business owner is access to capital not ability and by there are more small businesses then large concerns. Furthermore actually smart people aren't generally blinkered intelligence is by definition generalizable.

Your confusing reasonably trained in a narrow area with intelligence.

> intelligence is by definition generalizable.

How do you define intelligence?

I like this definition

"A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—"catching on," "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do"

I don't know where you live, but in most Western countries the capital required to become a business owner (i.e. start a legal business entity) is within reach of most people.

Unless we are talking about the money to file the paperwork to instantiate such an entity this just isn't true at least in the US.

Lets examine the parameters. In order to start a new business one has to be able to cover startup costs and live on your savings. Lets look at average savings as a starting point.

https://www.zippia.com/advice/american-savings-statistics/ About 33% have 10,000+ and 42% have less than 1000.

Even 10k is really very little in truth just a little runway until you can either acquire additional funding or crash and burn.

Lets inject some reality. Half of America has basically nothing. Another 25% would have to sink the majority of their accumulated wealth eg home equity into such an endeavor with a 50 50 chance of existing in 5 years. They COULD do it but it would be both scary and dangerous and half of them would end up ruined. It's like saying I could climb Everest.

I could scrape up the funds for the plane ticket and its possible I might survive the trip but anyone saying "most people could climb Everest" would be talking nonsense.

“and live on your savings.” << this is an obvious strawman.

There are plenty of ways to start a business without instantly giving up other employment.

To be quite frank this is mostly bullshit. Few people in the majority could live on less than full time hours or successfully launch a new endeavor on less. The counter examples mostly involve the "business" of owning things. For example owning the house someone else lives in especially if the day to day affairs are managed by a property manager, or investing in an endeavor wherein the majority of the work is done by those slightly less privileged wherein the "work" is effectively giving direction to secure your investment.

-“To be quite frank this mostly bullshit”

-some ramble about how it’s all too hard

Excellent debating style right there!

You dismissed the meat of the argument. People have finite amounts of time and money. In present context households are already running full tilt usually with 2 full time workers just to stay in one spot with too little in reserve to even cover ordinary disasters. It is this surplus of time and money that creates the opportunity for exciting things to happen like starting a small businesses.

Increasing costs and inequality rob us of the future surpluses that would be produced by such endeavors. Should we want to enrich our society it isn't sufficient to pretend opportunity exists we just endeavor to actually support it.

"You dismissed" - what, by calling it mostly bullshit?

The rest of your response is similar to your previous rambles about how it's all too hard, despite the countless examples, a mere google search away, of people who have started and run businesses in Western countries without instantly starving to death, or whatever your mostly-bullshit argument is.

So say you are liquid for 1000 bucks with average credit and a 50 hour a week time commitment to working and commuting to earn just enough to get by.

This or worse is about half the country

You need expertise, time, and money to start a business. The majority of people lack not one but all 3.

This is probably why only 9% own an established business. Indeed jp Morgan says that future business owners on average start out substantially wealthier.

https://www.jpmorganchase.com/institute/research/small-busin...

Which supports my assertion that the majority are ill positioned to start a business.

Money buys time, money buys relevant expertise in, wealth makes risk tenable because failure doesn't mean homelessness, money and financial health in fact buys access to borrowed money.

Everyone could just do what only 9% of people do is an incredibly privileged thing to say it's like Zuckerberg saying anyone can have a website or bolt saying anyone can run.

It's insulting.

Your glass is half empty. There are businesses you can start for under $1000, you may not personally be aware of them, but they exist (the business I own was started with much less than this amount in 2016 & has delivered decent returns with part-time hours since, no particular skills other than basic English & hard work required). Obviously you will need to spend time over your nominated 50 hour a week time commitment, why is this impossible? If you want to build wealth you need to put in the time. I don't recall claiming any of this was easy.

I guess some elements of capitalism need people with your defeatist outlook, to be lifelong wage slaves.

The glass is what it is. To be defeatist is to commit yourself to failure. I have no such ambition or shall I say lack thereof. To be a realist is to properly understand the world as it is and plan accordingly. If one wants to actually succeed then this is infinitely more valuable that fake optimism.

There are a lot of as you put it "wage slave" businesses which have 45 people making barely enough to live 4 folks making 20% more in semi-supervisory positions working 60 hours a week with lots of unpaid overtime effectively making less per hour than the grunts and 1 guy making a decent living.

You can accurately say that any of the guys could in theory move up but the logic breaks down trying to apply it to the group as a whole with one position essentially worth having anyone COULD move up but EVERYONE never could.

Society is essentially so constructed in the large. We can't all sell each other financial products. If we want society to function we will have to have a whole lot of people who are modestly compensated and I don't just mean french fry cooks. There are a lot of positions that are both challenging and necessary that really aren't paid that much. These people aren't all stupid losers and they aren't all too stupid to be business tycoons. They fit into the slots that society made and if we want people to move up we ought to do a better job at creating such slots and allocating resources to them.

Bemoaning the fact that people haven't pulled themselves up by their bootstraps is basically useless.

What business did you start?

No, I’m saying that smart people can be blinkered, that knowledge is distinct from intelligence, and successful businesspeople are sometimes lacking in general knowledge, sometimes startlingly so.

I think it is necessary for being really successful in most fields that you neglect a lot of other stuff. I've had to deal with quite a few successful scientists, and it is striking how otherwise very intelligent people can show an almost shocking naiveté in regards to, e.g., politics (outside faculty, I might have to add).

My take is that business owners are bottlenecked on their capacity to take in information. If they could integrate more knowledge about what’s going on in their business, they would be able to make better decisions. And they know it. So there’s a very high opportunity cost spending that cognitive effort researching random things online.

You simply don’t get to put all your focus on making your business succeed without being a bit “blinkered”. That’s what focus means.

In fact intelligence is negatively correlated with success in business. It’s all grit and a certain irrational headstrongness that’s needed

Sounds false. Do you have any citations for this claim?

Only beyond a certain point.

Once someone gets to Bill Gates level intelligence, I would agree any additional steps beyond that probably negatively correlates with grit and 'a certain irrational headstrongness' to a sizable amount, so much so that it noticeably reduces chances of business success.

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