Can you plot startup founder BMI against startup outcome? | Hacker News Reader

Can you plot startup founder BMI against startup outcome?

mahalo.com

15 pointslucumo24 comments

BMI by itself is not a good indicator of "health/habits." More important numbers for this aspect of health are body fat percentage and lean muscle mass.

BMI is a good indicator of whether you're over or underweight, which is an indicator of health and eating habits. I'd be interested to see the results of this but I can't see there being any correlation.

IMO the real problem with BMI is it relates volume to a linear dimention squared. So short fat people, and tall skinny people can have the same BMI. Changing to ((Hight ^3) / weight) would correct for this.

It works ok for people in the 5 - 6 foot range, but you can't really compare the BMI of someone 4'5" to someone 6'6".

It also doesn't work well if you're muscular. When I was really into bodybuilding, my BMI always indicated I was either obese, or borderline obese since I wasn't tall and muscle is very dense. Used to get a good laugh at that.

Definitely, muscle mass was one of my main points. BMI tries to indicate body fat percentage but fails somewhat miserably for a lot of people. A better thing is to have a real body fat percentage number.

BMI is a poor indicator of overall heath. However, because it's easy to find someone’s weight and height it's often used as a poor substitute for a wide range of things. Especially when looking at large populations.

Muscle mass is not really less harmful than body fat when looking at many diseases. Often what’s really important is your fitness level at other times it’s just a question of your mass. EX: Your hips don't really care about body fat v muscle mass it's all just weight to them.

PS: I would suggest individuals ignore BMI and talk with their doctor to find both their ideal weight, and what a reasanable range for their body type is.

Yeah, I deliberately wrote "this aspect of health" (how "overweight" you are) and am avoiding commenting on overall health, it's a whole other issue (and I think it is impossible to get enough good data from a population of startup founders to even begin to say anything in general about them).

That's true. BMI can reveal if people are dangerously underweight, and not eating enough food, leading to excess deaths:

http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2008/08/obesity-apocalypse.htm...

Oddly enough, you'll notice that the "normal" weight is actually more fatal than many "obese" weights.

I suspect that there will be a correlation. People on the extremes -- malnourished or morbidly obese -- may have distracting health issues. But in the middle ranges, other health variables would probably give you a better idea.

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I guess BMI isn't horrible, but what you really want to measure for any meaningful indicator of health is body fat percentage and strength. It's pretty easy to test both of these things.

BMI also has problems with race. Blacks have naturally higher muscle mass and get false overweight signals. Asians have naturally lower muscle mass and get false healthy weight signals.

A good bodybuilder would have a high BMI, but it's all muscle, so BMI is not always a good indicator of health.

Personally I totally see the possibility of correlation. The habits and personality that allows one to stay in good shape are totally helpful towards creating a successful startup. Furthermore the willingness to spend time on taking care of your body as well as your company indicates a wideness of perspective that definitely helps in determining the long-term direction of the company.

Bill Gates - skinny

Google guys - skinny

Steve Jobs - skinny

Jeff Bezos - skinny

actually from the top of my head I can't really come up with any heavily overweight startup founders.

Reid Hoffman from Linkedin isn't skinny (not sure if he was when he founded linkedin though)

At the age of 40, with what he calls his "active but sedentary start-up lifestyle," Hoffman just keeps getting bigger: about 10 pounds a year, he estimates.

http://articles.latimes.com/2008/jul/08/business/fi-hoffman8

LinkedIn was founded about sixty pounds ago:

http://www.crunchbase.com/company/linkedin

However, one should note that Hoffman founded an early social network when he was slimmer; it failed. And he wasn't a founder at Paypal, which succeeded.

Steve Wozniak - not skinny

Not now, but back then he wasn't obese.

Gabe Newell?

He's not the typical startup founder. He started a game company with the millions he got from Microsoft.

There was a discussion yesterday about the 'typical startup founder'. Newell may be closer to the 'typical' one, given that most startups are run by people with experience and money from their previous jobs.

Assuming the outcome is that most successful start-up founders are skinny, what would that be a sign of? High metabolism/energy and efficient energy use? Daily marathon like work sessions? Macro view of a healthy lifestyle? Other?

Self control?

Will be interesting to see if someone does this-- seems like WAY more than $50 of work/research.

Marc Beniof (Salesforce) isn't skinny, FWIW.

I bet there is a correlation between success and height, BMI, charm, and attractiveness (but I also imagine that there are plenty of exceptions).

"Correlation does not imply causation."

No causation is being suggested in the headline.

Also, reciting this as a mantra ignores the fact that correlation correlates well with causation. (Since causation implies correlation).

Basically, correlations need investigating and explanation. They can arise by chance, but the likelihood of that can be derived from the data (sample size, control for bias etc).

If they don't arise by chance, then there's likely to be "something going on". The fun part is working out what, but in general you start from a correlation, produce a testable hypothesis and test it.

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