5 ms·

What do you mean by "privileged classes", not sure i understood your idea ?

by jsilva 12y ago

dwaltrip 12y ago
The people who have had more good things happen to them (money, smarts, education, favorable societal position, supportive family) than most other people. It is easier for these people to not get a regular job and try to build something on their own.
hessenwolf 12y ago
Personal availability of risk capital. I mean, if I make a mistake with my cashflow stream, I don't eat. It has happened three times in my life, and not in twelve years. This means that I make decisions differently to somebody who has a buffer of parental emergency capital injection. For example, I would love passionately to quit my job right now. I would love to set up a consultancy specialising in data analysis for capital management for insurance companies, and have more than the required skill set, but if I take too much risk my family could be hungry. That would be decidedly uncool.
Axsuul 12y ago
He means those that belong to "privileged classes" usually don't have liabilities such as student loans to pay off and therefore have the freedom to pursue endeavors such as startups which don't pay the bills upfront. Furthermore, their support network is also a significant factor.
- xrange 12y ago
  And of course the vast majority of the world would consider someone with student loan debt to belong to a "priviledged class".
yen223 12y ago
For one thing, you need savings. If you absolutely need a paycheck this month to make it through to next month, you simply cannot afford the risks involved in doing the whole startup thing. Another thing, you need skills. But it's very difficult to get a decent education (formal or otherwise) if your family isn't able to support you during your formative learning years. It's not easy to learn programming if your family can't afford a computer. It's not easy learning financial management when the largest amount of money you ever had is $500. Basically, if you want to do a startup, you had better not be poor or uneducated.
- morganvachon 12y ago
  > Basically, if you want to do a startup, you had better not be poor or uneducated. Robert Herjavec would disagree with you, as would Sam Walton, Andrew Carnegie, Li Ka-shing, and dozens more who overcame poverty and a lack of education via hard work and common sense (and yes, a bit of luck in some cases) to become successful businessmen.
  - ska 12y ago
    I wouldn't go so far as the post you're replying too (I think you can do a startup without all the advantages named, but your risk looks different). However, I think you are falling into the trap of identifying outliers and then trying to reason about the general case from it - it's pretty hard to use that to say anything more that "it's possible for X to happen, because it happened here, and here."
    - morganvachon 12y ago
      That's all I was saying, that it is possible to bootstrap yourself from poor conditions. I'm not saying everyone who is poor can do that; it takes hard work and, as I conceded initially, a bit of luck, but I'm simply saying it can be done. If I'm being downvoted for stating the obvious, so be it, but I have a feeling it's that I've hurt some privileged feelings here. If so, then good; everyone needs a dose of reality once in a while.
  - wwweston 12y ago
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
  - yen223 12y ago
    The single best advice I ever received is "Think probabilities, not possibilities." I'm not denying that it is possible that an illiterate girl from a low-income family in Mali could overcome every obstacle and build a successful start-up. But how much would you bet on that happening? Do you also think that her success will negate the hardships that other folks in her position face?
briandear 12y ago
All it takes is a computer, hard work and dedication. The 'poor' manage to find the time to surf the net, why not spend the time learning how to build the net? It's a simplistic idea, but it is definitely possible. I lived out of my car for months until I was able to turn it around by using my computer for something besides surfing MySpace.
- threatofrain 12y ago
  I think the sad fact is that so many people are now in front of vast, utterly vast learning resources, and it just doesn't matter. Rich or poor, there are numerous people sitting in front of extreme learning resources, and they'll never do anything with it unless there's this enormous infrastructure designed to remedy issues of motivation and planning. And that's where I think the difference is between rich and poor; yes, there are networking differences, yes, there are differences in local crime rate and other environmental stressors and so on, but the biggest factor is motivation. I've seen a peer ditch school to go to the library to use public terminals, back at the time when computers still weren't that popular, and there was no Google or Wikipedia. But even then I could see that some people have a different heart -- starting from an early age, they had a yearning to learn that surpassed the praises of parents or the soothing structure of school. The issue isn't access. The access is already intense for rich and poor alike. Most people don't possess the psychological traits to pursue their own intellectual growth. Almost everyone I've met, rich or poor, stop learning when society stops pressuring them. They may have high or low IQ, be rich or poor, but they are not interested in self-directed learning, at least not without strong external reasons like parents or social shame. Almost everyone is not an intellectual.
  - melvinmt 12y ago
    It's a common misconception that the inability of poor people to learn/grow is related to motivation or "laziness", you should read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-having-little-means-much-ebook/dp/B00BMKOO6S http://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-having-little-means-much-eboo...
    - 12y ago
normloman 12y ago
Start up businesses are a gamble. Most fail. If you're middle class. that's ok. You can crash at mom and dads, and fall back on that college degree you earned. But the poor can't afford to fail. Gotta make rent somehow. At least McDonalds is a sure bet.

What do you mean by "privileged classes", not sure i understood your idea ?

by jsilva 12y ago

What do you mean by "privileged classes", not sure i understood your idea ?

The people who have had more good things happen to them (money, smarts, education, favorable societal position, supportive family) than most other people. It is easier for these people to not get a regular job and try to build something on their own.

hessenwolf 12y ago

Personal availability of risk capital. I mean, if I make a mistake with my cashflow stream, I don't eat. It has happened three times in my life, and not in twelve years. This means that I make decisions differently to somebody who has a buffer of parental emergency capital injection. For example, I would love passionately to quit my job right now. I would love to set up a consultancy specialising in data analysis for capital management for insurance companies, and have more than the required skill set, but if I take too much risk my family could be hungry. That would be decidedly uncool.

Axsuul 12y ago

He means those that belong to "privileged classes" usually don't have liabilities such as student loans to pay off and therefore have the freedom to pursue endeavors such as startups which don't pay the bills upfront. Furthermore, their support network is also a significant factor.

xrange 12y ago
And of course the vast majority of the world would consider someone with student loan debt to belong to a "priviledged class".

yen223 12y ago

For one thing, you need savings. If you absolutely need a paycheck this month to make it through to next month, you simply cannot afford the risks involved in doing the whole startup thing. Another thing, you need skills. But it's very difficult to get a decent education (formal or otherwise) if your family isn't able to support you during your formative learning years. It's not easy to learn programming if your family can't afford a computer. It's not easy learning financial management when the largest amount of money you ever had is $500. Basically, if you want to do a startup, you had better not be poor or uneducated.

morganvachon 12y ago
> Basically, if you want to do a startup, you had better not be poor or uneducated. Robert Herjavec would disagree with you, as would Sam Walton, Andrew Carnegie, Li Ka-shing, and dozens more who overcame poverty and a lack of education via hard work and common sense (and yes, a bit of luck in some cases) to become successful businessmen.
- ska 12y ago
  I wouldn't go so far as the post you're replying too (I think you can do a startup without all the advantages named, but your risk looks different). However, I think you are falling into the trap of identifying outliers and then trying to reason about the general case from it - it's pretty hard to use that to say anything more that "it's possible for X to happen, because it happened here, and here."
  - morganvachon 12y ago
    That's all I was saying, that it is possible to bootstrap yourself from poor conditions. I'm not saying everyone who is poor can do that; it takes hard work and, as I conceded initially, a bit of luck, but I'm simply saying it can be done. If I'm being downvoted for stating the obvious, so be it, but I have a feeling it's that I've hurt some privileged feelings here. If so, then good; everyone needs a dose of reality once in a while.
- wwweston 12y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
- yen223 12y ago
  The single best advice I ever received is "Think probabilities, not possibilities." I'm not denying that it is possible that an illiterate girl from a low-income family in Mali could overcome every obstacle and build a successful start-up. But how much would you bet on that happening? Do you also think that her success will negate the hardships that other folks in her position face?

briandear 12y ago

All it takes is a computer, hard work and dedication. The 'poor' manage to find the time to surf the net, why not spend the time learning how to build the net? It's a simplistic idea, but it is definitely possible. I lived out of my car for months until I was able to turn it around by using my computer for something besides surfing MySpace.

threatofrain 12y ago
I think the sad fact is that so many people are now in front of vast, utterly vast learning resources, and it just doesn't matter. Rich or poor, there are numerous people sitting in front of extreme learning resources, and they'll never do anything with it unless there's this enormous infrastructure designed to remedy issues of motivation and planning. And that's where I think the difference is between rich and poor; yes, there are networking differences, yes, there are differences in local crime rate and other environmental stressors and so on, but the biggest factor is motivation. I've seen a peer ditch school to go to the library to use public terminals, back at the time when computers still weren't that popular, and there was no Google or Wikipedia. But even then I could see that some people have a different heart -- starting from an early age, they had a yearning to learn that surpassed the praises of parents or the soothing structure of school. The issue isn't access. The access is already intense for rich and poor alike. Most people don't possess the psychological traits to pursue their own intellectual growth. Almost everyone I've met, rich or poor, stop learning when society stops pressuring them. They may have high or low IQ, be rich or poor, but they are not interested in self-directed learning, at least not without strong external reasons like parents or social shame. Almost everyone is not an intellectual.
- melvinmt 12y ago
  It's a common misconception that the inability of poor people to learn/grow is related to motivation or "laziness", you should read this book: http://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-having-little-means-much-ebook/dp/B00BMKOO6S http://www.amazon.com/Scarcity-having-little-means-much-eboo...
  - 12y ago

normloman 12y ago

Start up businesses are a gamble. Most fail. If you're middle class. that's ok. You can crash at mom and dads, and fall back on that college degree you earned. But the poor can't afford to fail. Gotta make rent somehow. At least McDonalds is a sure bet.