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Comment by bogs_carut | Hacker News Reader

This post contains a lot of loaded rhetoric.

Are you implying that the sort of people who assume the degree of risk required to build a financially-successful business (specifically of the "home-run" magnitude implied by a multi-billion-dollar acquisition, IPO, etc) are merely "self-aggrandizing money-chasers?"

Companies of that scale sometimes have the ability to improve society. There's also the potential for abuse.

But if a culture's general attitude toward aspiring to construct such a business entails disdain and mistrust, it hardly seems illogical to consider the possibility that cultural pressures are turning people away from the desire to do something entrepreneurial.

And that, I think, is the point that the author was attempting to make.

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> Are you implying that the sort of people who assume the degree .... are merely "self-aggrandizing money-chasers?"

Yes. That's very often the mentality, however you'd like to dress it up.

There's a distinction between small-businesses that arent pre-occupied with growth and "success" and those which are. Sure, if you have your own bakery/etc. then you're probably doing that because youre interested in the craft of baking. The fact that you own the company is kinda incidental to your passion for a craft.

I'm saying that these kind of people who build up multi-million/billion-dollar companies are basically interchangable money managers. You can take a telecoms business-genuis and put him in insurance, or manufacture, or anywhere: and people routinely do! Because the "skill" at that level is merely business as such.

All I got from this article is "people should aspire to be successful in business", which I think is kinda stupid and dangerous. People should be passionate about, eg., giving people healthcare, creating amazing art or music, writing the best novels, finding out how the world works...

that we have businesses and that they make money is something which is meant to facilitate our dreams not become them.

Capitalism abstractly is not meant as an end in itself, but almost everywhere we look today it has become one. Growth, expansion, money, "success" for its own sake - not for the sake of beauty/truth/skill/knowledge/love/etc.

First, thanks for your refreshing perspective. I agree that the focus on wealth and growth isn't going to help us create interesting things as a society. However I do think there's a craft to building a business that can stand along side the craft of baking or the pursuit of art.

The idea of great risk for great reward is a myth. The risk that the founder of Facebook assumed for example was close to nil, because he didn't have any job or money to start with. He risked the precious time that he would otherwise use to party at some Harvard fraternity. Similarly for so many other tech founders. They just happened to do well something that they liked at the right time. There are many small business that represent a much bigger risk for their owners, in terms of financial investment and loss of income.

You're disproving your own point. In the same paragraph, you say "The idea of great risk is a myth" and "There are many small business that represent a much bigger risk for their owners". Think about it.

The idea that I'm talking about is that the reward from a company is proportional to the risk taken. My example shows that small companies can sometimes impose a greater risk to their founders than the risk taken by the founders of Facebook or Google.

And? What is your point then? Would you be upset if the gold mine you discovered took 100' of digging before it yielded even an ounce, but your neighbor picked a spot where he only needed to dig 10' to get a pound of it?

The fact that the risk wasn't called in, so to speak -- that the worst case scenarios did not come to pass -- in no way diminishes what was risked. Beside, you have cherry-picked two cases where it is quite easy to construct a plausible a sounding (and factually false) "no risk" argument. HN routinely features entrepreneurship efforts where much was gained and much was won. Your main gripe appears to be that the risk-reward maxim is not describing a literal, linear relationship.

Next up, the sun doesn't always set in the west! (provided certain map orientations, times of the year and fluctuations in magnetic north)

Risk is relative. For a broke college student to quit school, move across the country, have no (or little) income, all for an idea that they have no clue will work is a huge risk. In the same vein, someone quitting their job after having already committed to car payments, house payments, and alimony is also a huge risk.

He went to Philips-Exeter. He wasn't exactly broke.

Yes, in this single case, that is true. I, and many of my peers, went to public school. I was broke.

It's only a myth if you're examining the situation from a singular angle -- that of monetary risk.

There's a great deal of risk and uncertainty involved in foregoing the completion of a degree, a potentially-salaried position at a stable firm, and so forth in favor of starting a company that is statistically unlikely to succeed.

In the example I gave (Facebook), there is no indication that the founder gave up on the degree until the company had already some traction.

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