[dumbfounder]

I have mixed feelings about this story. I applaud your resolve, and you have certainly had a tremendous amount of success that should be celebrated!

But I can't help but think about the 9 founders of other companies that had the same resolve in the same situation, but things did not work out so well.

All you other people thinking about going for broke need to be ready to hit bottom and build yourself back up afterwards, because 9 times out of 10 that's what will happen. Or, even better, first put yourself into a situation where you don't need to go for broke to give yourself an excellent chance at success.

I think this is why a lot of crazy big startups come from younger people, they can afford to go for broke before they have a family and other obligations, because the worst that can happen is they are left with nothing, then they settle for a high-paying job at a big tech company and 2 months later they can afford a new car.

[munificent]

I agree with your point that we shouldn't idolize people who make very risky personal sacrifices without framing it in the truth that most who do fail.

At the same time, I read this particular post as much less about "look how hard I hustled and because of that I'm a winner" and much more about gratitude towards the HN community and the appreciating the luck that enabled them to be one of the rare winners. It's more "even though we hustled we were still on track to lose until we got lucky and supported from others." I think that's an excellent sentiment to share.

[dvt]

> But I can't help but think about the 9 founders of other companies that had the same resolve in the same situation, but things did not work out so well.

Everyone on HN knows that the startup life is, in many ways, a lottery. But that doesn't mean it's not still one of the most reliable ways of exercising self-determination, working on something you're truly passionate about, taking full responsibility for your fate, and becoming financially independent (if not outright wealthy). Which is why most of us do it.

And, yeah, failing sucks, but saying "don't forget you'll most likely fail!" is just not particularly insightful in this kind of context. We already know that.

[solidasparagus]

> still one of the most reliable ways of [...] becoming financially independent (if not outright wealthy)

There's just no way this is true. For people with the skills needed by SV startups, working at one of the startups is almost certainly financially worse than using those skills at a large company.

[dvt]

I was specifically talking about founders (but even early stage engineers can do extremely well if the startup takes off). The upside is much higher doing your own thing rather than working at BigCorp (the two aren't even remotely comparable, but neither is the risk). Not to mention the end goals/QOL of working on what you want, commanding your own ship, being financially independent, etc.

Virtually all self-made millionaires+ started companies[1]. There's really no other way to get there.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2019/10/02/self-...

[KerryJones]

Sam Altman has argued against this in a number of places, here's the first one I found: https://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec01/

Looking at the potential upside is disastrous without looking at the downside. That's what the '00 tech bubble was -- we're prone to HUGE biases and it is important to have constant reminders to bring us back to reality.

The founders who have succeeded are known to be _irrationally_ optimistic, literally irrational. This means, statistically, it's a poor choice to do what they did. It means, in some sense of the word, they got lucky. Many founders publicly acknowledge this -- luck was a huge factor.

If you want money, being a founder _might_ get you there, but odds are, it won't.

Being a founder makes the most sense when you're obsessed with solving a problem and the money is a perk, not a motivator.

Transparency: ex-founder of Series B company

[scrozier]

You're making a giant logic error. It may well be true that most self-made millionaires started a company. It is certainly not true that most people who start companies become self-made millionaires, which was the premise of your original post.

[hansvm]

I think the more salient question is whether starting a company is the most reliable way to become a self-made millionaire (one of the things they're actually claiming), which could be true even if the chances were low. The parent comment's error (or perhaps an intentional omission if for example they thought it to be self-evident) is in not taking into account the volume of people starting companies vs the volume of people doing other things which could turn them into millionaires.

On that note, I do think there's a flaw in the logic or premises (or unstated assumptions -- maybe "millionaire" is code for some larger quantity of wealth) somewhere. A decade in FAANG with conservative spending habits will easily create a millionaire with a near 100% success rate, and it would be surprising if starting a company would have better odds than that.

[dvt]

> ...most people who start companies become self-made millionaires, which was the premise of your original post.

This is a complete fabrication. I never said that, directly or indirectly. In fact, I've said multiple times in this thread that 9/10 startups fail and that startup life is a "lottery" but people still choose to do it for reasons X, Y, or Z.

[monsieurbanana]

> Virtually all self-made millionaires+ started companies[1]

The article you linked makes no sense related to your claim. Unless you're saying that millionaires+ (whatever the + means) don't exist outside of Forbes.

> There's really no other way to get there

Joining a startup as an early member? Working in finance or computer science or medicine with ridiculous salaries?

Here's a link[1] with thousands of jobs with an average income higher than $100k. If you have that kind of income, you can become a millionaire.

> QOL of working on what you want, commanding your own ship, being financially independent, etc.

How about the QOL of not knowing for a long time whether you'll succeed or fail? Or having to deal with investors, marketing, managing people, aka everything that you probably don't want to be working with? Not commanding your own ship because most of it is built with other people's money?

If you're talking QOL, I don't see how playing the lottery with your future (in your own words) is better than having a high-income job, then FIRE in your 30ies.

[1] https://www1.salary.com/Six-Figure-Income-Salaries.html?page...

[dvt]

> How about the QOL of not knowing for a long time whether you'll succeed or fail? Or having to deal with investors, marketing, managing people, aka everything that you probably don't want to be working with?

This is kind of silly to bring up. Obviously people starting a company are okay with managing people and dealing with investors (or if not, being bootstrapped). You're saying "being an elite athlete sucks because you have to deal with working out and eating healthy" like.. yeah, you kind of signed up for that. You can't be an NFL player and eat donuts all day.

> FIRE in your 30ies.

This is ironically very similar to doing a startup (but with less risk, and a lower upside). Are you forgetting that investing didn't go so well for people in 2008? I actually like the FIRE movement.

[monsieurbanana]

> Obviously people starting a company are okay with managing people and dealing with investors

I must have dreamed all the posts and comments about people learning that they were actually not made for being a founder, that marketing is more important than what they like doing (programming), and that the stress of creating a company is higher than they thought.

It's nice that you found your path in life, and I have nothing against that path being creating a company. I just don't see what's your goal by repeating that everyone who doesn't agree with you is a "survivorship bias naysayer". Self-reassurance you made the right choice?

[quickthrower2]

You can also get to millions by investing while working a regular job

[dvt]

Again, the upside is significantly higher if you start a company (financial independence is just one piece). It can be risky (see OP), but it's pretty rational to be a founder, especially if you can weather the adversity. I'm not even sure how my claims are controversial (especially here on HN, of all places).

[Retric]

Looking at upsides on their own is meaningless. The mega millions jackpot is currently at $550 Million dollars in cash. That doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to spend 2$ on a ticket.

So sure, it’s possible to become a billionaire by writing books just look at J.K. Rawling. Hell someone got 10,000 bitcoins for the price of 2 pizza, which in theory are worth 366,790,000$ today. In the end the upside of being the founder isn’t worth much on day one. It might be worth something down the line, but it’s critical to have a fallback option.

[quickthrower2]

Oh sure the upside is higher because you might start the next Uber or Facebook or Dropbox. However the utility of money diminishes IMO for most people past the point you no longer need to work. It depends on what you goals are and the probability distribution you are after. Also many founders end up burned and in poor physical health so there is that risk too.

[CuriouslyC]

The only problem with that is that I think a lot of people are okay with any really good upside above XXX dollars (i.e. comfortable financial independence). Given this, even though the potential dollar amount of the upside is much larger, the odds of an "acceptable" upside are significantly lower, and as a result it is a bad choice for people who aren't extremely ambitious.

[Kranar]

The comment said "one of the most reliable ways", not the only reliable way. Furthermore the two are not mutually exclusive. I worked at Microsoft and Google before starting my own company, mostly as a way to pay off student debt. A few of my co-workers at Google also left to start their own companies as well. There's no reason why you can't put in a couple of years at a large company to make some early cash, then leave to start your own company.

If it fails you can almost certainly go back to working at a big company and heck even try again later on in life.

[solidasparagus]

But it's not reliable at all. Particularly when you consider the longer and longer time to exit, the greater dilution due to those huge late rounds, the fact that you get hit with the tax burden when you exercise (which can easily be a decade before that stock is liquid), the fact that the late rounds have significantly raised the bar on what a 'successful exit' is.

Now that startups tend to stay private so long, the value of employee equity has absolutely tanked.

[Drdrdrq]

If only Mark Zuckerberg knew this back then... /s

[baby]

Point of GP is that failing while hitting unexpected medical issues in the US will destroy your life with high probability. There is no prize for those who lost, just a feel-good stories for those like OP who “survived”.

[dvt]

This kind of mentality reminds me of solipsism. It's just not interesting to talk about, insightful, or productive, outside of being a contrarian edge-case you could write a paper about.

Cool, you're a cynic. Yes, as we all know, most startups fail and the US healthcare system sucks. Anything else to add?

[baby]

I'm not sure why you're having such a virulent reaction to my comment? That's probably the most important point about this whole thread, at least this is what I got from the post. If you want to feel good and feel empowered to build your own start up from OP's post, then I don't know what to think of your risk appetite.

[dvt]

> If you want to feel good and feel empowered to build your own start up from OP's post, then I don't know what to think of your risk appetite.

You're attacking a strawman here. My point was merely that cynicism (which your post conveyed in spades), much like solipsism, is an unproductive dead-end. Feel free to make your case, but I'm fairly confident I'm correct.

[baby]

Not sure how you can describe my post as cynic[^1] to be honest. I think it's the reverse: people who find joy and feel butterfly in their stomach when 1 guy survive but the 9 others die on the streets are nothing but blind.

[^1]: "an inclination to believe that people are motivated purely by self-interest; skepticism."

[vmception]

I find it very productive to talk about. I’m glad it was the first comment for me.

2013: Their reddit, digg, forum posts went nowhere, their hackernews post hit

2021: Their reddit, twitter, forum posts went nowhere, and neither did their hackernews

[gfxgirl]

Would be nice if there was a book/site that listed the 100k failures and their personal stories to the 1k success stories.

[DavidPeiffer]

I'm picturing your idea like StumbleUpon, but with 1/1,000 of telling a success story. Don't Stumble too fast or you'll miss the success among all the failures!

It's sort of like a failure resume, which is certainly an interesting exercise.

https://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/document/download/bed2706fd...

[dvt]

There are hundreds of post-mortems online, and they're often shared and upvoted here on HN. The idea that this community only celebrates unicorns and success stories is pretty unfounded.

[yawnxyz]

we've been at this for two+ years and making a ton of progress but it's been a continuous, unfunded slog, and we continuously think "maybe it's better to just shut things down and join an already funded startup?"

but then the people work with us tell us how important our work is to them / the community and it encourages us to push through... it's kind of bittersweet

[blizkreeg]

What is it with every post on HN having an almost 50/50 split along the cynical line.

Of course 9/10 founders are going to fail, some people have more privilege to take risks, and people with families have to take measured risks.

What's the point? Should people not try, keep crying about it, keep complaining that it's easy to say this when you have privilege, keep looking at the negative side? We all recognize life's a lottery and the odds are stacked in favor of some and not others. So?

[dumbfounder]

I am not cynical, I am a 3 time founder and looking to start another company. I am the opposite of cynical. It is simply cautionary advice. I think we have a tendency to glorify startup life and I think people should be grounded in reality when making massive decisions like this.

[blizkreeg]

There is also something called dealing with the consequences. People figure it out. It's not a joy ride, but it's not the end of the world.

At least most people in tech have the skills to fall back on a career if their company fails. Needless caution advice coated in a cynical tone just creates negativity around the whole topic.

Can't we just celebrate that the founder of Webflow managed to rescue his company from the brink of fail (even if it was dumb luck - it wasn't) and has built a life for himself? This is the stuff that inspires human beings and makes everyone feel like they could do it too. Clouding it in _oh but what if you're in the other 9 out of 10 camp_ is just you know .. pointless.

It's fine to say, hey make yourself comfortable first, play small bets and free yourself from complete ruin before you go bet the farm, but, yolo so you do you. But no need to rain on the parade of the person who has crossed over to the other side.

[rizpanjwani]

so basically you're saying it's ok to create positivity around a topic on a regular basis, but not negativity, even though the negative consequences happen more often than not?

[blizkreeg]

And what do you aim to accomplish with that negativity? We all know the risks in everything.

By educating me about the risk, you haven't accomplished anything. If you have ideas for how I can play the odds better and improve my success rate, I'm all ears. It's better to say look to each side of the road when you cross vs you're gonna die if you're not careful.

[cunac]

better analogy would be that in this case you are unaware that crossing a road is dangerous and you are most likely to die. 90% chance.

[wussboy]

Research shows that people view negative evaluations as being more intelligent. It’s extraordinarily difficult to be intelligently positive, and very easy to seem intelligently negative.

[baby]

The point is that people should avoid that path until universal healthcare is a thing, and we need to showcase more stories of life destroyed not feel-good stories that give you hope that the system is “fine”.

[blizkreeg]

So I suppose most people should not start a company for the next 50 years?

[baby]

Either move to a country with universal healthcare or spend the money for a good private healthcare. Don’t half ass that, you’ll end up homeless for life otherwise.

[austinl]

I agree in the sense that the HN community cannot save a bad product. And sometimes it wouldn't even save a good product.

But I think the thanks here is for the community that was willing to give a new product a try, provide feedback, and help the founders build momentum towards what it ultimately became — especially when it was clear there was no traction on other sites. I think that's something to be thankful for, and shows that HN can be different from other communities in meaningful ways.

[baby]

There’s actually no “going back up” or digging yourself of your own grave once you hit a large medical expense. Lots of people become homeless and bankrupt for life due to these issues.

Personally, my plan is to go back to Europe if I want to launch an American startup because there is no way I would do this without a good health insurance and good social safety nets.

Interestingly, we see much more startups in the US even though the downsides of creating your startup in the US are insane. I guess we are really optimistic individuals (or start up founders tend to be crazy individuals).

[cfontes]

try funding a startup in europe and you will understand why.

[dumbfounder]

I hear about a lot of startups moving to Canada, the best of both worlds?

[warent]

I think a large portion of entrepreneurs and founders don't do it because it's a get-rich-quick scheme or a normal path to retirement. It's because it's in their (our?) nature.

My stakes are much, much smaller, so maybe this experience is very particular to me, but I'm fortunate to have bootstrapped a growing SaaS business that is now closing in on USD$2000 MRR. Before this, I have a trail of hair-brained failures.

The sense of accomplishment hasn't changed with the (modest) business success. I've felt accomplished the first day I started trying and failing. This is just our nature. Seeing material success from it only icing on the cake.

[TAForObvReasons]

*younger people with family wealth. Some of my friends were unable to take risks because they needed to support their parents as well, and that puts a huge pressure to go with the safe money

[Techonomicon]

I love this comment. I don't think this notion gets highlighted enough.

This is definitively anecdotal, though I've been at / through approximately 5 startups across 12 years, and looking back, I believe each end everyone one (except for one) was definitely helped / started by a founder or set of founders who didn't have to worry about whether they went belly up or not due to family wealth. Hell, I still know some that I've consulted for that have lived in the bay area for the past 8 years without a product that makes any money, no vc funding, and were just out of their masters 8 years ago.

Clearly looking back, nearly every founder I've worked for came from a family with $$$. Even currently, at least one of my co-ceos just up and left their 2 million dollar menlo park house and went to live in their parents vacation home in monterey right when covid began.

Taking risks becomes extremely easy when you have a large family wealth backed safety net propping you up along the way. This happens way more often than people realize, and often the founder(s) will definitely not talk about this at all / downplay it if it is brought up.

The privilege is real.

[aerosmile]

If you don't come from wealth, please don't be deterred by this and similar narratives. The OP is not referring to any facts or data, just a personal experience, aka n=1. If you're looking for a more reliable guidance in life, look at YC which is n~3,000. If there's anyone who knows where to look for startup success, it's YC - and their search has increasingly shifted towards India, Nigeria and similar countries [1].

[1] YC publishes stats on each class, but here's an umbrella stat that should cheer us all up: in the last 5 years alone, around 1,000 YC founders were female, Black or Latinx (https://www.reuters.com/article/venture-capital-y-combinator...)

[Techonomicon]

Definitely not meant as a deterrent for anyone. Just stating information I've viewed. That's all.

If anything those coming from backgrounds I didn't list should try to be as involved as possible with startups. Thanks for the alternative take, but nothing stated was meant to deter as much as inform.

We also shouldn't erase potential truths for lack of crowdsourced data. We as a tech community have a large desire to ask for the source, which is great, but double edged.

Relaying information of this sort that I and others brought up is important on the basis of more eyes on the potential problem and looking into the data than not.

[WD-42]

It's no surprise that the largest predictor of wealth is... wealth. Lots of founders might not be directly funded by family wealth, but the various safety nets and conveniences (even op said they sold 2 of their cars) are a major factor, if not the largest factor, of success.

It's an ugly truth of life that I've come to accept: the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor.

[notatrumper]

Unless they bought Bitcoin for 1$ in 2009.

Another tried and proven way is to marry somebody who is rich. Mostly just an option for women, though.

[TeMPOraL]

People who bought Bitcoin for $1 in 2009 won the lottery. There was no rational basis for expecting any significant payout from that.

Marrying into money is an option for some, but you have to make a big emotional sacrifice (at least in Western culture) if you opt for going by wallet instead of going by heart. It's doable, but GP's point here is that a rich person doesn't have to make that choice.

[notatrumper]

Why would it be a big emotional sacrifice to marry into money? Especially if (as some studies suggest) money is a big part of what makes men attractive, odds should be high for actual love being involved in the decision.

[deedub]

You have repeatedly brought up marrying someone rich in this thread saying it is "mostly an option for women". So, are you some how saying rich women only marry rich men, but rich men will consider poor women? So much so it's actually a thing? Sources, please? It sounds extremely out dated and kind of gross...especially because you keep saying it like it is some valid thing.

[baby]

It's definitely a thing in places like China where you have a much larger population of men, and it is harder and harder to find a woman (so much that some people buy their wives online from other poorer countries).

[notatrumper]

It's a well known data point. In general, women don't like to marry down, and men have less of an issue marrying down. Think of the classic "doctor marries nurse".

If you Google, you should find a lot of articles about it, as it is an important sociological issue. Now that more women are having a career, in fact, more women than men are having an academic career, it is becoming difficult for women to find adequate men.

Also women marrying up was historically the MOST important mechanism of social mobility (people moving up in status/wealth). Too bad that feminism does not allow it anymore, as any man who marries a less wealthy women is considered to be "abusing his power".

The other claim, women being attracted to men with more money, I am less sure about. I am sure you can find studies analyzing data from dating platforms yielding that result, but I don't know how well they generalize to dating in general.

Edit: perhaps a starting point, but in general, Google should be able to help https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy

[artur_makly]

in sports at least the old saying was:

"A ball player's got to be kept hungry to become a big leaguer. That's why no boy from a rich family ever made the big leagues.

- Joe Dimaggio

[lotsofpulp]

I’m seeing quite a lot of athletes whose parents were athletes, or had the means to pay for elite training.

I don’t expect the hungriest kids to have any chance in most pro sports unless they’re above average, at least in size for the major US sports.

[hewrin10]

Agreed, pro sports is more genetics than anything, you can train till you bleed for years, but if you aren't at least 6 feet plus, no way are you gonna reach the NBA.

[TAForObvReasons]

To an extent it doesn't get highlighted enough because the community buries these comments. The comment you are replying to is sitting at -3 karma at the moment, and I wouldn't be surprised if similar comments were flagged and downvoted.

[notatrumper]

Yes, having money is good. That's why many people strive to have money.

I personally also don't think it is unfair if kids of rich parents inherit their money (or their support). After all, being able to take care of one's children is a major motivation of many people for trying to make money.

It's also well known that money is an important factor in mate choice for women.

Even without money, biology would be at work and people would be striving to find attractive mates to conceive "fit" children.

You could then also say those "fit" children are "privileged" compared to "less fit" children.

--

Anyway, as your own anecdotes highlight, if you are not rich, find another way, for example a rich person who gives you money.

[Techonomicon]

Don't think there was any weighing in on fairness going on as much as it not being acknowledged enough.

I believe, from experience seeing it, many founders who succeed will quote literally everything but their background, upbringing, and privilege as a factor, even though the fact that they had little to worry about while building their empire with respect to you know, the things everyone else has to care about on a daily basis (bills, debt, what happens if I fail) is an extremely large factor.

The barrier to entry of them taking a risk is so much lower that it is (in my opinion) directly correlated to their success at the end of the day.

Anyway, that's all. Less about fairness, and more about wish this was really highlighted more.

[notatrumper]

My impression is that "privilege" has by now taken on that meaning of "unfairness". It seems to be the most common modern use ("check your privilege" and so on). It sounds as if those people don't deserve it.

It's a shame, because I think it used to mean exactly the opposite, having a privilege was an honor. Is the phrase "it was a privilege to have known you" still being used?

[Techonomicon]

You should recognize your privilege along with your strengths, and not overtly hide your privilege to appear on equal footing.

I have intimate knowledge with writers, specifically offspring of well known writers who do their best to hide this fact, yet will still use their parents agent. And yes, it is unfair for them to believe they are on equal footing with any other writer.

That doesn't mean they don't try hard, but they do have benefits built into their life that others don't.

If you want to trailblaze without being perceived as someone of privilege getting there then you should take paths that align with that, and not ones that don't.

[nojito]

>I think this is why a lot of crazy big startups come from younger people, they can afford to go for broke before they have a family and other obligations, because the worst that can happen is they are left with nothing, then they settle for a high-paying job at a big tech company and 2 months later they can afford a new car.

This really isn't true. The average age of a successful entrepreneur is 45.

[capiki]

That's a *successful* entrepreneur. OP was talking about any entrepreneur.

[nojito]

No...

>I think this is why a lot of crazy big startups come from younger people,

"crazy big startups"

[PopeDotNinja]

Not only did I run out of money, I ended up homeless!

TL;DR -- don't run out of money.

[ATS22]

totally agree with you. young people don't have to worry about stuff like managing their money because they are backed up. it's a shame grown ups with families can't find this backup in the community. once more capitalism shows it's ugly side.

[jdminhbg]

> it's a shame grown ups with families can't find this backup in the community. once more capitalism shows it's ugly side.

OP had a three year old daughter with a life-threatening medical condition, so I'm not sure what exactly you're talking about.