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Comment by dangus | Hacker News Reader

That’s way better odds than being a top tier professional athlete.

If 60% of companies fail that means if you start 6 businesses then you have a 95% probability of having a successful business.

Only 1.6% of college football players transition to the NFL.

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I don’t think they’re independent events. Bayesian priors would say that if you have five failed businesses then your chances of being successful on number 6 are probably less than 60%

I disagree. A bunch of founders out there have a string of failures surrounded by their successes.

Here is a list of a few of them: https://press.farm/startups-fail-founders-bounced-back-and-b...

Some of these founders had two or more failed businesses before reaching success.

Assuming the success is independent.

Well, it’s much more independent than being a pro athlete. By design you only have one to two chances to go pro at a sport. You can’t go back in time to your prime playing age, you can’t go back in time to train at a different sport during your youth.

For business owners, starting a business is a matter of filing a few pieces of paperwork. Starting a business is quite literally an independent event from starting the business prior.

The supply outstrips the demand. The number of NFL teams is tightly controlled to extract the most amount of money from its consumers. More teams, less money for each owner and players but a higher % of college football players having a shot at a career.

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