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Great comment by b0ttler0cket! He is completely right. Sharing my point of view, I am also have no competitive spirit at all (and I don't want to grow any also). My high school used to divide students in classes according to our grades. I consciously chose no to study to the finals in order to stay on the same class of my friends. I am a good soccer player, but, unsurprisingly, I am always at the loser side of a game - sport is a field where competitive matters, not entrepreneurship. As a founder myself, not being competitive certainly has implications, but that doesn't give any reason to create a "fear paralysis". Sure, we both doesn't have the right fit to create a copycat business. Create a local Groupon where we would have to ferociously compete for markets. But what about innovation? Blue ocean strategy? Non-profit startups? Social business? Research? I may even say that creating a new social networking site don't justify your fears (or are you actually afraid of being so successfull that you will make all Facebook employees fired??). See how many possibilities? I can't not say something, and I am only saying this because I can completely relate to your spirit and I really have no intention to offend here. But, to me, sounds one of two options: or you are extremely short-sighted about what can you achieve or you are just rationalizing all of this in order to justify your inaction, your fear of getting out of your comfort zone. On a final note, a misconception: Capitalism is not a zero sum game. Not at all. Even Karl Marx, the biggest, most important, most inteligent, most profound, most ferocious critic of capitalism says that capitalism imply in poverty, that for some to get rich, some have to be poor. No, the capitalism itself doesn't demand this. The way we practice capitalism today has this consequence, but this is changing. Less poverty in the world is better for rich people and rich countries. China growth allowed a better life for both USA wealthy people and chinese poorest - there is no way a continual world growth is possible without including Africa in world's economy. It is perfectly possible to create a business where you create wealth for every stakeholders and doesn't destroy wealth with some externality.
*Marx's criticism is more in the line that capitalism leads to individualism, fetishism, human degradation(not through poverty), reification (thingification of social relations). |