[jmfayard]

People always make fun of the little girl who wants to become the next Madonna. So totally unrealistic right?

And then they read startup porn and copy Elon Musk habits to become as insanely successful as him. Or at least as Peter Thiel.

I'm with the little girl. Her dream is not less realistic than the second one, but much more meaningful.

[koonsolo]

You do not need to be Elon Musk to make a good living from your business, but you will need to be in the top 0.1% to make a good singing career.

[goatherders]

Not even close. There are literally thousdand upon thousands of singers you have never heard up that hsvw good careers.

[koonsolo]

Thousands is not that much is it?

Just look at the tv show 'the voice' and look at how many contestants they start with, and how many end up making a living out of it.

The number of people with businesses are not expressed with "thousands".

[goatherders]

Using a network TV show as the measuring stick is a little silly. That's like saying the only chefs who make a living out of it are the ones that make it to Chopped or Top Chef.

There are plenty of singers that work with bands, operas, theater companies, studios, schools, as performers, as songwriters, as backing singers and on and on. The living they make is every bit similar to the living made by a guy that owns a pest control company or a woman that owns a small bookkeeping firm.

[koonsolo]

> That's like saying the only chefs who make a living out of it are the ones that make it to Chopped or Top Chef.

Thanks for that comparison! With Top Chefs, most of them make a living as a chef or cook. With The Voice, most of them don't (not even as backing vocals). Why is that you think? To make a living as a chef or cook, you need to be in the top 90%. To make a living singing (even as backing vocals), you need to be in the top 0.1%.

[goatherders]

ALL of the chefs on Top Chef are professionals. All of them. That's the point of the show.

NONE of the singers on the Voice are professionals. That's also the point of the show.

The bigger point that clearly wasn't understood is that celebrity and success aren't mutually inclusive when it comes to cooking or music. You can be a successful chef that isn't on Top Chef just as you can be a successful voice that never goes on American Idol. In fact MOST people successful in both realms will never ever be on even a local TV show.

[solveit]

Not even kidding, I love how HN commenters understand orders of magnitude.

[dmix]

Beyond music it's the same with professional sports, being a 'youtube personality' or influencer, etc. Or even rising the ranks to become a CEO tier employee who can make millions.

General entrepreneurship is severely underrated in our society for upward mobility and it's rarely praised. Not every business needs millions in financing, there's a million opportunities for people with niche skills or who come across niche opportunities from their regular day-to-day work.

Even something as boring as electricians, my uncle started an electrician company and now has 10 employees and is living quite comfortably. He built up a strong skillset, made plenty of contacts, and worked hard in his 30s to start out of his own, and now comfortably in the upper middle class.

I remember reading a book about the myths of entrepreneurship, who studied large groups businesses, and the average 'founder' isn't some child-genius out of college (like the media tries to spin) but a ~40yr old with plenty of domain experience.