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Comment by jhancock | Hacker News Reader

I can agree this is why 99% of "someone with an idea" does not convert the idea into a meaningful business. However, I prefer to qualify the term "entrepreneur" as someone that fully accepts the "1% inspiration, 99% perspiration" rule.

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I had the same thought, its less the entrepreneurs and more the population as a whole. I do think most people are capable of at least trying to start a company. The biggest obstacle that keeps them from "doing anything" is intimidation (of how hard it is) and comfort in their current routine.

Being in the process of launching an own company I can wholeheartly second both of your points. During our recruiting efforts we noticed that most people are mindboggingly risk averse, up to the point of irrationality. In one sentence they'll tell you how they've always wanted to start their own thing and how promising your idea sounds to them - and in the next they cop out because you can't offer them a 3yr contract with full salary and some sort of success guarantee on top...

The hiring process is definitely unique.. we often ended up with people who would instead make quirky lifestyle stipulations that were more important to them than money or security. Like being able to work from noon until whenever. Or not wearing shoes, ever. Or bringing their dogs to work.

Oddly enough, because we started in a falling apart mansion the fact that we had a full kitchen and a washer and dryer was enough to convince a bunch of people.

"You mean I can do laundry at work?"

"yep"

"wow!"

Well, unfortunately the population of dog-loving barefeet coders does not entirely overlap with the population of rockstar programmers. But nonetheless our main criterions remain quality of code and ability to communicate in a meaningful way (asynchronously if their sleep-cycle requires it).

If someone can deliver both of that then, frankly, he may run around naked all day as far as I am concerned. I have no reason to discriminate dog-loving nudists, as long as that doesn't negatively affect their contribution to our business objectives.

Entirely correct. We did not get the best people. It probably cost us more money in the long run. But we were able to ship the product and survive.

It can take years and years to find an amazing team of programmers that's a good fit. After 12 years we have, but in the beginning we just had to ship and get paid.

True. But types 2 and 3 are working hard, just without focus.

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