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Comment by t8sr | Hacker News Reader

If 90% of businesses fail and you start 10 businesses, you still have about 35% chance of failing at all 10 of them.

This is assuming uncorrelated results too. As you observe more and more of your businesses failing, you would want to update your estimate of your own rate of failure. Each new failure in a string of only failures is slight evidence that your own rate of failure may be >90%, even if it's 90% on average for everyone.

Yes this is crucial. If you can’t improve your odds after nine tries then you are doing something very wrong.

That does not change the fact that the best thing you can do to tilt the odds in your favor is to choose your parents carefully.

You can have nine businesses all fail for separate reasons. Learn all you want from each failure but the next business might fail in new and creative ways no matter what lessons you apply from previous failures. The 10% chance to succeed is a combination of lots of factors, many of which are completely out of your control.

Life is probably too short to start 10 businesses

Not if nine of them fail.

Also, Elon Musk has done nine and he is only 52.

I also wonder how many of the failed business in the stats already are an entrepreneurs third or fourth attempt. Some repeated attempts may already be factored into the failure rate!

The surest way to fail is to blame your parents.

> The surest way to fail is to blame your parents.

You wouldn't be wrong as they have a very strong correlation [1].

[1] https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/parents-income-not-smarts-...

I had a conversation on an airplane with a lady that read scripts for a movie studio. I learned three things. You submit a script they'll read it for purely liability reasons. Most scripts are garbage. But of the ones that aren't about 10% get bought. So if you're good you can make a living script writing.

Some other bit about being a movie producer. Guy said people ask how you can become a producer. He said it's impossible. No one will let you produce a movie unless you've done one before. But if you have even if it is terrible and flops, you're a producer and can get work.

Combine those two. If you have the want, low grade cunning, and persistence you can totally make a living starting businesses after your first disaster.

If 90% of businesses fail then just put armor on the ones with bullet holes.

Yes I understand basic math but I would implore you to improve your reading comprehension as I used the word “probably “ (which 65% qualified as) and emphasized we can’t eliminate luck but can influence it.

Sir, this is Hacker News. Replying with snarky arithmetic is pretty much the what passes for a bon mot around here. If you don't enjoy that, you will probably (>65% chance) find HN a stressful forum.

OTOH, if you assume we're not on average dumb or trying to get a rise out of you, you'll have a good time.

If I wanted to be really snarky, I would point out that words like "probably" actually have agreed upon numerical values (give or take), and 65% would often be described as "about as likely as not". [^1] Although it's close to the "likely" range, I will grant you. :P

[^1]: https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ar4-uncertai...

Your account is from 2021 so spare me the lecture on the rules of Hacker News. If you don’t want me to assume you have poor reading comprehension skills, don’t leave comments indicating that.

Being pissy to strangers on the internet is a choice, friend. I hope whatever is making you feel bad about yourself gets better.

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