Really good article, at first I started reading on the defensive because I am a serial entrepreneur. For 28 years of my life I never had a payroll check from anyone but my own companies. It was amazing and painful at the same time. I thought about starting my sixth company and I got a chance to be an SVP at a very large public company. I did that for a while and really enjoyed it and actually moved on to a new company now were I'm an executive and get to do a lot of cool stuff.
I often debate on going back to start company six, and many saturdays my circle of friends hold "startup circle" where we pitch ideas and push a couple small projects forward and debate on quitting our real jobs and going back to building another company.
I would say the best realization of this article is that entrepreneur is a state of mind. A willingness to create from nothing in the face of extreem adversity. I have been a developer for close to 30 years now also and it's very much like that first couple of hours when you stare at the blank screen thinking about the 100,000's of lines of code needed to build whatever system it is you're about to build. Except it's more addicting then that because the scale is so much larger and your "vision" collides with "reality" and becomes something you can influence but often you end up along for the ride.
I personally would bet it's the same reason professional bull rider's ride bulls. Most of us look at them like they're insane but they have this zen approach to managing risk and the randomness of the bull trying to kill them. And when they beat the other guy the "high" must be quite insane.
Entrepreneurs suffer from the same sort of bold blindness. I have spoken with many people over the years who ask me "how can you do that, how do you get out of bed every day and just push forward" and I tell them I just like the challenge. To them they see me risking my family, my house, my car and my career to do something that scares them to death. To me I see the opportunity to express something that burns in the core of my soul and make something from nothing on a scale that should scare me but really just excites me!
I think the saying "40 years of work in 4 years" is a bit unfair, the reality is if you love what you do and are passionate about it you can work like this in a company that already exists or a mid-term C round start-up and have a lot of fun and potentially be well rewarded. That part is just the workaholic that might give an entrepreneur slight edge and a chance to ride the bull just a bit longer then the next guy.
It's amazing how you people really believe all this.
I don't mean to offend anyone, but I hate when people think of themselves a beautiful butterfly. Common people, employees, plumbers, etc. also have ideas, also have "bold blindness", they also have a willingness to create from nothing (who think created the thousands of open-source apps that are part of GNU and/or Linux, entrepeneurs?) is not that what separates you from them. You have disposable money and instead of a nice boat or car you put it in a business. And you know how to talk people into putting money in your idea, and you probably live in a country so terribly full of money that people are willing to risk it. That's it. Unless you are an entrepeneur living in some hellhole african country, in that case, respect to you, bold african entrepeneur.
Success or failure has a large component of luck that people don't like to acknowledge. Especially counter-factual luck. My parents are very lucky to never have had to deal with serious illness, injury, accident, etc. I'm sure if there was a terrible car accident that killed my family, I wouldn't exactly be as focused on my work and therefore less 'succesful' as an entrepreneur.
But there is an element of uniqueness to dive into the entrepreneurship game at all. Plenty of people have ideas and do nothing at all with them. If you don't actually dive into it, quit your job, and work at it, it's impossible to build a business. Most people (the vast majority) don't have the balls to do that.
Hard work and taking that risk are necessary but insufficient conditions for entreprenurial success. You also need luck. But that doesn't discount the amount of risk taken or the amount of work put into it, and most people can't stomach that.
I agree with all you said, but consider that humans in general are terrible at estimating risk. I believe being an entrepeneur is not that risky, and being an employee is not that safe either.
The main problem that I see about seeing entrepeneurship as unnaturally bold, risk-takers, creative intelligent people, is that you dehumanize the no-entrepeneur person, in such a way that's very easy to exploit them, because, they are like cattle, non-risk takers, and deserve it, right?
I agree.. I often say the real talent is being in the right place at the right time. Sadly that's not always an option and sometimes it's hard work that helps even the odds.
Whether I agree with you depends upon your definition of "you people". HN certainly has its fair share of startup circle jerkery and idealization, but the grandparent didn't come off as being a part of that. Rather, it sounds like they were just trying to share their experiences on the subject of the OP.
What's is a amazing is I started my first business with $486.00 in the bank. Don't berate people because you don't understand how it's done. Several of my companies were partnerships with other people for funding.
As bedris quoted: "[the] definition of an entrepreneur is someone who makes things happen despite not controlling the resources necessary to achieve them."
It's not always about rich people having fun.. most of the time it's about people following their passion and pushing every limit to make stuff happen.
And most of the time it's about complete and utter failure and learning from that so you do better the next time. :-)
I would say the best realization of this article is that entrepreneur is a state of mind. A willingness to create from nothing in the face of extreem adversity.
I agree with this. I came across the following definition of an entrepreneur, which I also really liked: "[the] definition of an entrepreneur is someone who makes things happen despite not controlling the resources necessary to achieve them."
I often debate on going back to start company six, and many saturdays my circle of friends hold "startup circle" where we pitch ideas and push a couple small projects forward and debate on quitting our real jobs and going back to building another company.
I would say the best realization of this article is that entrepreneur is a state of mind. A willingness to create from nothing in the face of extreem adversity. I have been a developer for close to 30 years now also and it's very much like that first couple of hours when you stare at the blank screen thinking about the 100,000's of lines of code needed to build whatever system it is you're about to build. Except it's more addicting then that because the scale is so much larger and your "vision" collides with "reality" and becomes something you can influence but often you end up along for the ride.
I personally would bet it's the same reason professional bull rider's ride bulls. Most of us look at them like they're insane but they have this zen approach to managing risk and the randomness of the bull trying to kill them. And when they beat the other guy the "high" must be quite insane.
Entrepreneurs suffer from the same sort of bold blindness. I have spoken with many people over the years who ask me "how can you do that, how do you get out of bed every day and just push forward" and I tell them I just like the challenge. To them they see me risking my family, my house, my car and my career to do something that scares them to death. To me I see the opportunity to express something that burns in the core of my soul and make something from nothing on a scale that should scare me but really just excites me!
I think the saying "40 years of work in 4 years" is a bit unfair, the reality is if you love what you do and are passionate about it you can work like this in a company that already exists or a mid-term C round start-up and have a lot of fun and potentially be well rewarded. That part is just the workaholic that might give an entrepreneur slight edge and a chance to ride the bull just a bit longer then the next guy.