I cite the point you’re making here a lot both in the context of economics and in spiritual practice, both with the parable of Neo: freedom within the matrix (superpowers!) vs freedom from the matrix (a boring slog out in the desert of the real, but meaningful).
The biggest things preventing people from starting their own companies are slogs. Sweeping the floor and doing paperwork. The biggest things preventing success in spiritual practice are slogs. Just sitting down and investigating the breath for hundreds of hours and reading obvious nonsense in dead languages until something clicks. I’m tempted to say something like starting a MIRI is sort of like doing both at the same time (inward and outward focused slogs).
The biggest things preventing people from starting their own companies are slogs. Sweeping the floor and doing paperwork.
What’s the epistemic status of that statement? I would say the biggest things preventing most people from starting companies are 1) realizing on a gut level that that’s actually a thing you can do, 2) having a goal that starting a company helps you reach, and 3) being able to lay out a plan for actually doing it. I would say the biggest barriers for people who want to start companies but don’t are a lack of available resources (financial, temporal, network, educational, legal) to get started and get them through the early phases (often as a result of pre-existing obligations within the current system and/or to their partners and families), and social pressure (for anyone not already in a startup-heavy region/field/industry).
As I noted below, nearly all startups fail (including the ones I’ve been involved in). So in my case, the biggest barrier to starting my own company is my experienced judgement that it’s almost never a good idea.
If a >5% chance of getting rich seems worth a <95% chance of wasting several years of your youth, then you do you. That’s how I wasted my own youth. In retrospect I wish I’d picked one of the fun ways, but hindsight is 20⁄20.
If you want to try a startup anyway, here a few bits of advice:
Your company will be very demanding and not lucrative for quite some time. You’ll need slack everywhere else. Avoid debt like the plague. Relationships will be challenging.
When you have employees, their perspective will diverge from yours. It’s not their company. It’s not their dream. It’s just a job to them.
Joining a startup is like going on a blind date. There is a finite number of times you can do it before it becomes incredibly depressing. The first one is an adventure, and the second one you know will be different. After that …
I cite the point you’re making here a lot both in the context of economics and in spiritual practice, both with the parable of Neo: freedom within the matrix (superpowers!) vs freedom from the matrix (a boring slog out in the desert of the real, but meaningful).
The biggest things preventing people from starting their own companies are slogs. Sweeping the floor and doing paperwork. The biggest things preventing success in spiritual practice are slogs. Just sitting down and investigating the breath for hundreds of hours and reading obvious nonsense in dead languages until something clicks. I’m tempted to say something like starting a MIRI is sort of like doing both at the same time (inward and outward focused slogs).
What’s the epistemic status of that statement? I would say the biggest things preventing most people from starting companies are 1) realizing on a gut level that that’s actually a thing you can do, 2) having a goal that starting a company helps you reach, and 3) being able to lay out a plan for actually doing it. I would say the biggest barriers for people who want to start companies but don’t are a lack of available resources (financial, temporal, network, educational, legal) to get started and get them through the early phases (often as a result of pre-existing obligations within the current system and/or to their partners and families), and social pressure (for anyone not already in a startup-heavy region/field/industry).
As I noted below, nearly all startups fail (including the ones I’ve been involved in). So in my case, the biggest barrier to starting my own company is my experienced judgement that it’s almost never a good idea.
Just want to note that “most startups fail” doesn’t necessarily mean startups are almost never a good idea; they could be worth it in expectation.
If a >5% chance of getting rich seems worth a <95% chance of wasting several years of your youth, then you do you. That’s how I wasted my own youth. In retrospect I wish I’d picked one of the fun ways, but hindsight is 20⁄20.
Yep, I agree that’s the trade-off, and I agree it doesn’t sound like the right one for a lot of people.
If you want to try a startup anyway, here a few bits of advice:
Your company will be very demanding and not lucrative for quite some time. You’ll need slack everywhere else. Avoid debt like the plague. Relationships will be challenging.
When you have employees, their perspective will diverge from yours. It’s not their company. It’s not their dream. It’s just a job to them.
Joining a startup is like going on a blind date. There is a finite number of times you can do it before it becomes incredibly depressing. The first one is an adventure, and the second one you know will be different. After that …
Good luck!