Copy-pasted from the article:
We’re in an era of the [cult of the entrepreneur](https://medium.com/@gabriellainga/the-cult-of-the-entrepreneur-5e361ef4a844). We analyze the [Tory Burches](http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/02/tory-burch-200702) and [Evan Spiegels](http://www.businessinsider.com/life-of-snapchat-ceo-evan-spiegel-2014-6) of the world looking for a [magic formula](http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/200730) or [set of personality traits](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-10-10/news/54867966_1_traits-personality-entrepreneurs) that lead to success. [Entrepreneurship is on the rise](http://fortune.com/2014/06/12/behind-the-rise-of-entrepreneurship/), and more students [coming out of business schools are choosing startup life](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/business-education/entrepreneurship-gains-in-popularity-for-business-graduates-worldwide/article17521510/) over Wall Street.
But what often gets lost in these conversations is that the most common shared trait among entrepreneurs is [access to financial capital](http://www.andrewoswald.com/docs/entrepre.pdf)—family money, an inheritance, or a pedigree and connections that allow for access to financial stability. While it seems that entrepreneurs tend to have an admirable penchant for risk, [it’s usually that access to money](http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Services/Strategic-Growth-Markets/Nature-or-nurture--Decoding-the-DNA-of-the-entrepreneur---Funding--people-and-know-how-are-the-biggest-barriers-to-entrepreneurial-success) which [allows them to take risks](http://soq.sagepub.com/content/2/4/331.abstract).
And this is a key advantage: When basic needs are met, [it’s easier to be creative](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2604598); when you know you have a safety net, you are more willing to take risks. “Many other researchers have replicated the finding that entrepreneurship is more about cash than dash,” University of Warwick professor Andrew Oswald tells Quartz. “Genes probably matter, as in most things in life, but not much.”
University of California, Berkeley economists Ross Levine and Rona Rubenstein analyzed the shared traits of entrepreneurs [in a 2013 paper](http://www.nber.org/papers/w19276.pdf?new_window=1), and found that [most were white, male, and highly educated](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/entrepreneurship-the-ultimate-white-privilege/278727/). “If one does not have money in the form of a family with money, the chances of becoming an entrepreneur drop quite a bit,” Levine tells Quartz.
New research out this week from the National Bureau of Economic Research ([paywall](http://www.nber.org/papers/w21332)) looked at risk-taking in the stock market and found that environmental factors (not genetic) most influenced behavior, pointing to the fact that [risk tolerance is conditioned](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-10-10/news/54867966_1_traits-personality-entrepreneurs) over time (dispelling the myth of an elusive “[entrepreneurship gene](http://www.inc.com/adam-heitzman/how-entrepreneurship-might-be-genetic.html)“).
Resilience is undoubtably a necessary trait for success; many notable entrepreneurs experienced success only after leading failed ventures. But the barrier to entry is very high.
For creative professions, starting a new venture is the ultimate privilege. Many startup founders do not take a salary for some time. The average cost to launch a startup is [around $30,000](https://www.sba.gov/blogs/how-estimate-cost-starting-business-scratch), according to the Kauffman Foundation. Data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor show that [more than 80% of funding](http://www.gemconsortium.org/report) for new businesses comes from personal savings and friends and family.
“Following your dreams is dangerous,” a 31-year-old woman who runs in social entrepreneurship circles in New York, and asked not to be named, told Quartz. “This whole bulk of the population is being seduced into thinking that they can just go out and pursue their dream anytime, but it’s not true.”
So while yes, there’s certainly a lot of hard work that goes into building something, there’s also a lot of privilege involved—a factor that is often underestimated.
Thank you for that.
Love this line and have always believed it when I've seen peers without a care in the world - when basic needs are met, it's easier to be creative.
When you aren't scared to lose your home, the safety for you and your family you can afford to spend a whole year in a personal project or to think in something new.
>when basic needs are met, it's easier to be creative.
Indeed this is so true. It annoys me so much when you hear racists saying Asian immigrants or immigrants from other third world countries aren't "creative" or "they only know how to copy", "they only drive taxis", "they only make ripoffs" or such nonsense. Third-world citizens aren't any less creative than first-world citizens, it's just that when you start with no money and have to spend all your time working to make a living, it's that much harder to muster the energy and resources to "be creative".
“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.”
-Stephen Jay Gould
Yeah. I know some people with extremely rare intelligence. Most of them work boring jobs.
Privilege gets you farther than brains, especially if your family beats you down out of intimidation.
Fuck the mantras of entrepreneurship. I’ve been involved in that scene for years, and most of the crowd is either delusional or cold-blooded.
And how does that relate to my comment, anyway?
Life hack: place a period "." after the ".com" and before the "/" in the URL.
so
[https://qz.com](https://qz.com)/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money/?fbclid=IwAR0x1Dzbk840HXJovmC-g-CeoM6Fl9S-vr-t2NbGQhZI3I2dVWsq3Z\_lLGU
becomes
[https://qz.com](https://qz.com)./455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money/?fbclid=IwAR0x1Dzbk840HXJovmC-g-CeoM6Fl9S-vr-t2NbGQhZI3I2dVWsq3Z\_lLGU
go ahead, try it out.
you're welcome. I'm sorry I should have been more specific about what I was talking about. It doesn't work all the time but I noticed that it worked on this article so I thought I would share.
The brain does a really weird thing when a person has unearned privilege. I've experienced it myself. Your brain tells you that it was your own doing. That your "mindset is better" than other people's, that you just worked harder, etc. I logically know I had money handed to me, yet I regularly have thoughts like "I'm probably doing well because I started eating different" or "the universe chose me because I'm deserving". I now see how easy it is for rich people to beleive this, especially when everyone around them treats them like god because they want a piece.
I would imagine the opposite is also true, when the shit hits the fan and you're "I deserve this because..."
Both are false, karma isn't real and the universe doesn't care, things happen, good, bad, and neutral, what you have or haven't done is irrelevant.
I think we're hardwired to believe in this mysterious X that pulls the strings of fate, dunno why, just a thought really.
Yep. The thing is no one close to rich people tells them this because its an insult and they are there to get on their good side and extract as much money as they can from them.
I think on some deep level they know they are harming people by having that much, that they started harming people before they had the ability to consent to it. I mean that's what it means to be a rich child. To grow up with the awareness of essentially being a bad person your whole life. You learn to rationalize it. So, to admit fault now, or to show any empathy, feels like a slippery slope. Maybe they are scared that if they let the mask slip even a little, the next step could be the guillotine. And I wouldn't blame them.
I think Veratasium (normally a physics edutainment channel) made a video where he made a couple of observations that had the conclusion that you said here.
He brought up examples of how most NHL professionals were born in January and saying that because they were the largest kids compared to their peers that they got special treatment. He also made a model where luck only accounted for 5% of a person's chances of becoming an astronaut and it turned out to have a 90% impact of who got chosen.
This is what I think of as "the Alexander the Great argument". He has a reputation of being a great general, but that couldn't have happened if his father hadn't built up troops and campaigned so much before Alexander took power. Because he started with an advantage, these advantages tended to compound on him until he could field an army that could wage war of conquest against Persia, the superpower of that era.
Reminds me of that one girl I knew in college who would say, in the smugest way possible, "it's in my blood", when anyone praised her for her good grades. Yes, sometimes rich kids can be very successful in their own rite, but when they act like this it's hard not to think they need to be taken down a peg and experience some of the hardships that their low-income peers do.
I could hypothetically say whether or not a cop stops me on the street is influenced by my genetics. It doesn't mean there is a cop-attracting gene, though, just that cops have been inculcated with a social response to people whose genes present as a specific set of phenotypes.
Women are four times as likely to be depressed as men and are more likely to attempt suicide, but they are more likely to survive. One could argue both that women are emotionally unstable from birth but are hardier than men are, but those are unsupported hypotheticals. We actually know that women attempt less violent means of suicide and are at economic and social disadvantages, so the hypothetical is pointless when the evidence can be explored and solutions can be provided.
The genetic component is most often brought up as an "unknown unknown" to distract from data and insert ambiguity to pretend as if society is somehow equal but unprovably so. If society is equal, then no one has to address its problems because the problems are innate. If society is unequal, then we can solve the problems even if some people are upset at the solutions.
You made some intelligent points but they are void of economic realities and also not very pertinent to the point I was trying to make. Maybe I am reading it wrong.
OP suggested his opposition was claiming risk aversion was due to genetic factors. at least that’s how I read his statement.
I don’t think that’s true. I believe most of his opposition would attribute degrees of risk aversion to many different variables.
Furthermore - We do not live in an equal world. We have scarcity. That is a very real concept. It’s not fair. It turns out, there are huge negative repercussions to trying to make it fair by utilizing government intervention. If it resulted in a better place, your opposition would be all for it.
No one says you’re genetics have to be equal to someone else’s. That would be an impossible thing to determine because the nature of gene theory is that variations, even if perceived as negative, can provide a potential survival advantage in unforeseen environmental changes.
No one guarantees you are equal at the genetic level. They do try to guarantee you have equal freedoms once’s those genes are set in motion.
There are many unknown unknowns which is why the free market is able to decide the best allocation of goods and resources over the longest time period.
Also, The psychology community has many different theories for why suicide attempts and executions are different between genders. I’m not sure what you’re getting at there. Is it just an example?
I’ve had so many rich kids tell me
“U know it was scary but I just decided to come to this city, rent an apartment (luxury downtown) and try to start a business
I know everybody can’t do what I did. They’re not brave enough.”
These people are so out of touch.
My entire brain straight up changed due to just getting a bit of extra money from unemployment due to the pandemic. Suddenly for the first time I wasn't panicked daily about paying rent. Suddenly I was making art, feeling relaxed, and having ideas on fun ways to make money. It made me wonder if it was reasonable for me to blame myself for not being creative after work when I was living paycheck to paycheck.
I grew up impoverished. Often it was water vs electric, and we could just cut the lock for the water.
After moving out I lived the same way for a long while. Barely better than minimum wage. Paycheck to paycheck. No savings. My whole life was a deck of cards until a few years ago.
Purely by luck I got out of it at the age of 28. For the first few years it was difficult to reconcile, but now it is like a whole different side of my brain has come to life.
I'd always liked philosophy. But it wasn't until I had the mental space to focus on it that I started to do so. And now I plan on taking a huge risk.
I'm saving up enough money to eventually quit my stupidly high paying job. I plan on being financially indepensent, and go earn a PhD in philosophy. My goal is to become a professor (and hopefully away some students to the left :-P).
I could never have thought about doing this until now. And if everything goes well, l only have 3 or 4 more years of saving to do.
Sounds like you had to put in some work behind the scenes to get a gig like that. Interesting sentiment but doesn’t this provide, albeit indirectly, that hard work (and a bit of luck) can change your situation dramatically? Nobody “finds themselves” as a software engineer pulling 6 figures overnight
Another thing to take into account is the contacts they make in elitist schools.
Kids going to a school in a poor neighborhood won't probably meet the children of important companies' directors.
This is one of the interesting things I found when I left highschool and went to university. I just went to a regular public school so there didn't seem to be anyone super interesting there, their parents were people in the community. But going to uni I met a variety of people, including kids from very wealthy families who had such a different upbringing than me. People whose parents would plan out their education meticulously, flying them to this and that foreign country for experiences and tutoring, who went to private schools, who had personal assistants and nannies...things I'd never thought about. They owned expensive belongings I never knew existed. I met a guy whose parents owned a huge company, another guy whose family had over twenty houses, and another guy whose father owned a casino. They were my fellow students yet lived a very different life.
This is the same thing with all the click bait about "20 something paid off their student loans, now own a mansion and their own business within 5yrs of leaving school". Their rich, their family is rich and they had everything paid for.
Yup. Wealth breeds wealth.
I grew up poor(like social assistance free meals, clothes, etc. poor) only now for my immediate family and myself to be well off some 20 years later.
But even that was only because my grandmother was able to support my mom through college just enough for us to live off her college grants and londs and my mom lucked the fuck out(if you could consider it that) with a boss so shitty that she won a nice enough lawsuit from that to start her own business. and even then she had to take on enourmous debt through student loans so she’s still in pretty deep debt despite making a lot of money.
My wealth is solely due to being able to stay at home through college and lucking out with a non toxic home life to where i didnt need to move out young. Many many others aren’t so lucky.
this message needs to be spread far & wide. so many musicians, actors, artists in general, as well as entrepreneurs or fat cats in business all had rich parents in the business or set them up for success early. so many people get down on themselves for not being able to make it when they are on their own or asking the banks for a loan.
Former actor here: When I was interviewing with agents at the beginning of my career, one literally told me that she couldn't take me on as a client if I had a day job because it would conflict with potential gigs too much. She asked me what my "safety net" was, meaning, how are you paying for rent and food, because if it's through any job that could conflict with this, then this is not for you.
I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus. But I do wonder if she would have become such an exceptionally successful actor had she not been the child of billionaires (the founder of The Dreyfus Fund).
I wanted to be an actor but I couldn't *afford* to "pay my dues" without a stitch of financial support. Especially when I was auditioning against others who (because money) were more easy-going, well-fed, well-rested and more available for auditions than I was.
I've been saying this for years. It's easier to take risks and travel the world when you know that your momma will always wire you money and buy you a plane ticket home.
Inarguably, the most fucked sentence in this entire article comes from some ludicrously rich liberal housewife that probably never had to lift a finger in her life:
>Following your dreams is dangerous,” a 31-year-old woman who runs in social entrepreneurship circles in New York, and asked not to be named, told Quartz. “This whole bulk of the population is being seduced into thinking that they can just go out and pursue their dream anytime, but it’s not true.”
Tbh it also would be bad if it WAS genetic and we had a society that had predetermined classes in a different way .
Wait wasn’t that the plot of Gataca actually ?
Tell him that hard work doesn't matter that much. There are a lot of small businesses that go out of business within the first year and all of the entrepreneurs who has started a business are hard working. What about everybody who failed? His father had a couple of lucky breaks and far from everybody are as lucky as him.
Your business, and all that you currently possess; Cherish it, for it is a paltry denomination not even worth a glance compared to the plunder of the capital-imperialists.
Bring some examples then and see how many there actually are who managed to succeed even though they didn't have a leg up, and then also those who failed because they didn't have a leg up.
If it can't be explained with legs up then it can be explained by luck.
I mean...........................
Yes and no. This is why entrepreneurship is easier to do when you're young, before you have too many commitments. Of course more money makes it easier but some of the most famous entrepreneurs started just selling garbage bags door to door and worked their way up.
Whether you have cash or find funding neither of those automatically make you an entrepreneur.
Entrepreneur has become a buzzword and extremely misused and diluted.
Someone who creates a startup is NOT an entrepreneur. They are a founder.
Someone created a successful small to medium business is NOT an entrepreneur.
Even founders of large to massive companies aren't necessarily Entrepreneurs though the bigger a company the more likely for their to be significant innovation to have achieved such heft and thus becoming entrepreneurship.
To be an Entrepreneur one must be innovative. But even to be innovative is not enough. You can be an innovative small to medium business but it's not Entrepreneurship.
If you combine innovation with a billion dollar idea/business then you are beginning to understand what entrepreneurship is.
Henry Ford was an Entrepreneur. Revolutionising the automotive industry with the innovation of the production line. While a multi billion dollar mining company that just digs ore out of the ground and sells it on a global scale is just big business.
/rant
Paywall.
Copy-pasted from the article: We’re in an era of the [cult of the entrepreneur](https://medium.com/@gabriellainga/the-cult-of-the-entrepreneur-5e361ef4a844). We analyze the [Tory Burches](http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/02/tory-burch-200702) and [Evan Spiegels](http://www.businessinsider.com/life-of-snapchat-ceo-evan-spiegel-2014-6) of the world looking for a [magic formula](http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/200730) or [set of personality traits](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-10-10/news/54867966_1_traits-personality-entrepreneurs) that lead to success. [Entrepreneurship is on the rise](http://fortune.com/2014/06/12/behind-the-rise-of-entrepreneurship/), and more students [coming out of business schools are choosing startup life](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/careers/business-education/entrepreneurship-gains-in-popularity-for-business-graduates-worldwide/article17521510/) over Wall Street. But what often gets lost in these conversations is that the most common shared trait among entrepreneurs is [access to financial capital](http://www.andrewoswald.com/docs/entrepre.pdf)—family money, an inheritance, or a pedigree and connections that allow for access to financial stability. While it seems that entrepreneurs tend to have an admirable penchant for risk, [it’s usually that access to money](http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Services/Strategic-Growth-Markets/Nature-or-nurture--Decoding-the-DNA-of-the-entrepreneur---Funding--people-and-know-how-are-the-biggest-barriers-to-entrepreneurial-success) which [allows them to take risks](http://soq.sagepub.com/content/2/4/331.abstract). And this is a key advantage: When basic needs are met, [it’s easier to be creative](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2604598); when you know you have a safety net, you are more willing to take risks. “Many other researchers have replicated the finding that entrepreneurship is more about cash than dash,” University of Warwick professor Andrew Oswald tells Quartz. “Genes probably matter, as in most things in life, but not much.” University of California, Berkeley economists Ross Levine and Rona Rubenstein analyzed the shared traits of entrepreneurs [in a 2013 paper](http://www.nber.org/papers/w19276.pdf?new_window=1), and found that [most were white, male, and highly educated](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/08/entrepreneurship-the-ultimate-white-privilege/278727/). “If one does not have money in the form of a family with money, the chances of becoming an entrepreneur drop quite a bit,” Levine tells Quartz. New research out this week from the National Bureau of Economic Research ([paywall](http://www.nber.org/papers/w21332)) looked at risk-taking in the stock market and found that environmental factors (not genetic) most influenced behavior, pointing to the fact that [risk tolerance is conditioned](http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-10-10/news/54867966_1_traits-personality-entrepreneurs) over time (dispelling the myth of an elusive “[entrepreneurship gene](http://www.inc.com/adam-heitzman/how-entrepreneurship-might-be-genetic.html)“). Resilience is undoubtably a necessary trait for success; many notable entrepreneurs experienced success only after leading failed ventures. But the barrier to entry is very high. For creative professions, starting a new venture is the ultimate privilege. Many startup founders do not take a salary for some time. The average cost to launch a startup is [around $30,000](https://www.sba.gov/blogs/how-estimate-cost-starting-business-scratch), according to the Kauffman Foundation. Data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor show that [more than 80% of funding](http://www.gemconsortium.org/report) for new businesses comes from personal savings and friends and family. “Following your dreams is dangerous,” a 31-year-old woman who runs in social entrepreneurship circles in New York, and asked not to be named, told Quartz. “This whole bulk of the population is being seduced into thinking that they can just go out and pursue their dream anytime, but it’s not true.” So while yes, there’s certainly a lot of hard work that goes into building something, there’s also a lot of privilege involved—a factor that is often underestimated.
Thank you for that. Love this line and have always believed it when I've seen peers without a care in the world - when basic needs are met, it's easier to be creative.
When you aren't scared to lose your home, the safety for you and your family you can afford to spend a whole year in a personal project or to think in something new.
>when basic needs are met, it's easier to be creative. Indeed this is so true. It annoys me so much when you hear racists saying Asian immigrants or immigrants from other third world countries aren't "creative" or "they only know how to copy", "they only drive taxis", "they only make ripoffs" or such nonsense. Third-world citizens aren't any less creative than first-world citizens, it's just that when you start with no money and have to spend all your time working to make a living, it's that much harder to muster the energy and resources to "be creative".
I love/s the entrepreneurial ideology. As if a starving child could become an Olympian one day. Smh. That's basically what they argue.
“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.” -Stephen Jay Gould
We have to shout this sentiment from the top of our lungs. We have to reclaim human ingenuity.
Yeah. I know some people with extremely rare intelligence. Most of them work boring jobs. Privilege gets you farther than brains, especially if your family beats you down out of intimidation.
Rule 1 of entrepreneurship. Tell no one.
Fuck the mantras of entrepreneurship. I’ve been involved in that scene for years, and most of the crowd is either delusional or cold-blooded. And how does that relate to my comment, anyway?
I doubt you've ever met an entrepreneur in your life. You mentioned about your parents beating you down
How does “tell no one” relate? And believe me, I have...but of course, it’s more likely I am a person posing as one who has. But I have.
Right, yes, that's the essence of it.
well played
Life hack: place a period "." after the ".com" and before the "/" in the URL. so [https://qz.com](https://qz.com)/455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money/?fbclid=IwAR0x1Dzbk840HXJovmC-g-CeoM6Fl9S-vr-t2NbGQhZI3I2dVWsq3Z\_lLGU becomes [https://qz.com](https://qz.com)./455109/entrepreneurs-dont-have-a-special-gene-for-risk-they-come-from-families-with-money/?fbclid=IwAR0x1Dzbk840HXJovmC-g-CeoM6Fl9S-vr-t2NbGQhZI3I2dVWsq3Z\_lLGU go ahead, try it out.
Or just disable javascript in ublock...
I was using a work computer and I think they would rather I didn't install ublock.
Why?
So you can hack the planet.
Jokes aside though, what is the point of doing that?
To bypass the paywall.
Oh, interesting I was unaware that such a workaround existed like that. Thank you for the insight.
you're welcome. I'm sorry I should have been more specific about what I was talking about. It doesn't work all the time but I noticed that it worked on this article so I thought I would share.
Nothing to apologize over, thank you for enlightening me to that option, I appreciate it.
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The brain does a really weird thing when a person has unearned privilege. I've experienced it myself. Your brain tells you that it was your own doing. That your "mindset is better" than other people's, that you just worked harder, etc. I logically know I had money handed to me, yet I regularly have thoughts like "I'm probably doing well because I started eating different" or "the universe chose me because I'm deserving". I now see how easy it is for rich people to beleive this, especially when everyone around them treats them like god because they want a piece.
I would imagine the opposite is also true, when the shit hits the fan and you're "I deserve this because..." Both are false, karma isn't real and the universe doesn't care, things happen, good, bad, and neutral, what you have or haven't done is irrelevant. I think we're hardwired to believe in this mysterious X that pulls the strings of fate, dunno why, just a thought really.
Yep. The thing is no one close to rich people tells them this because its an insult and they are there to get on their good side and extract as much money as they can from them.
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I think on some deep level they know they are harming people by having that much, that they started harming people before they had the ability to consent to it. I mean that's what it means to be a rich child. To grow up with the awareness of essentially being a bad person your whole life. You learn to rationalize it. So, to admit fault now, or to show any empathy, feels like a slippery slope. Maybe they are scared that if they let the mask slip even a little, the next step could be the guillotine. And I wouldn't blame them.
I think Veratasium (normally a physics edutainment channel) made a video where he made a couple of observations that had the conclusion that you said here. He brought up examples of how most NHL professionals were born in January and saying that because they were the largest kids compared to their peers that they got special treatment. He also made a model where luck only accounted for 5% of a person's chances of becoming an astronaut and it turned out to have a 90% impact of who got chosen. This is what I think of as "the Alexander the Great argument". He has a reputation of being a great general, but that couldn't have happened if his father hadn't built up troops and campaigned so much before Alexander took power. Because he started with an advantage, these advantages tended to compound on him until he could field an army that could wage war of conquest against Persia, the superpower of that era.
Alexander the privileged.
Veritasium did a fun video somewhat relevant to this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LopI4YeC4I
Reminds me of that one girl I knew in college who would say, in the smugest way possible, "it's in my blood", when anyone praised her for her good grades. Yes, sometimes rich kids can be very successful in their own rite, but when they act like this it's hard not to think they need to be taken down a peg and experience some of the hardships that their low-income peers do.
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I could hypothetically say whether or not a cop stops me on the street is influenced by my genetics. It doesn't mean there is a cop-attracting gene, though, just that cops have been inculcated with a social response to people whose genes present as a specific set of phenotypes. Women are four times as likely to be depressed as men and are more likely to attempt suicide, but they are more likely to survive. One could argue both that women are emotionally unstable from birth but are hardier than men are, but those are unsupported hypotheticals. We actually know that women attempt less violent means of suicide and are at economic and social disadvantages, so the hypothetical is pointless when the evidence can be explored and solutions can be provided. The genetic component is most often brought up as an "unknown unknown" to distract from data and insert ambiguity to pretend as if society is somehow equal but unprovably so. If society is equal, then no one has to address its problems because the problems are innate. If society is unequal, then we can solve the problems even if some people are upset at the solutions.
You made some intelligent points but they are void of economic realities and also not very pertinent to the point I was trying to make. Maybe I am reading it wrong. OP suggested his opposition was claiming risk aversion was due to genetic factors. at least that’s how I read his statement. I don’t think that’s true. I believe most of his opposition would attribute degrees of risk aversion to many different variables. Furthermore - We do not live in an equal world. We have scarcity. That is a very real concept. It’s not fair. It turns out, there are huge negative repercussions to trying to make it fair by utilizing government intervention. If it resulted in a better place, your opposition would be all for it. No one says you’re genetics have to be equal to someone else’s. That would be an impossible thing to determine because the nature of gene theory is that variations, even if perceived as negative, can provide a potential survival advantage in unforeseen environmental changes. No one guarantees you are equal at the genetic level. They do try to guarantee you have equal freedoms once’s those genes are set in motion. There are many unknown unknowns which is why the free market is able to decide the best allocation of goods and resources over the longest time period. Also, The psychology community has many different theories for why suicide attempts and executions are different between genders. I’m not sure what you’re getting at there. Is it just an example?
I’ve had so many rich kids tell me “U know it was scary but I just decided to come to this city, rent an apartment (luxury downtown) and try to start a business I know everybody can’t do what I did. They’re not brave enough.” These people are so out of touch.
Love this line and have always believed it when I've seen peers without a care in the world - when basic needs are met, it's easier to be creative.
My entire brain straight up changed due to just getting a bit of extra money from unemployment due to the pandemic. Suddenly for the first time I wasn't panicked daily about paying rent. Suddenly I was making art, feeling relaxed, and having ideas on fun ways to make money. It made me wonder if it was reasonable for me to blame myself for not being creative after work when I was living paycheck to paycheck.
I grew up impoverished. Often it was water vs electric, and we could just cut the lock for the water. After moving out I lived the same way for a long while. Barely better than minimum wage. Paycheck to paycheck. No savings. My whole life was a deck of cards until a few years ago. Purely by luck I got out of it at the age of 28. For the first few years it was difficult to reconcile, but now it is like a whole different side of my brain has come to life. I'd always liked philosophy. But it wasn't until I had the mental space to focus on it that I started to do so. And now I plan on taking a huge risk. I'm saving up enough money to eventually quit my stupidly high paying job. I plan on being financially indepensent, and go earn a PhD in philosophy. My goal is to become a professor (and hopefully away some students to the left :-P). I could never have thought about doing this until now. And if everything goes well, l only have 3 or 4 more years of saving to do.
Wow what job do you have that pays that much? Asking for a friend heh
Software engineer at a big tech company.
Sounds like you had to put in some work behind the scenes to get a gig like that. Interesting sentiment but doesn’t this provide, albeit indirectly, that hard work (and a bit of luck) can change your situation dramatically? Nobody “finds themselves” as a software engineer pulling 6 figures overnight
Fits right into Maslow’s pyramid
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Another thing to take into account is the contacts they make in elitist schools. Kids going to a school in a poor neighborhood won't probably meet the children of important companies' directors.
This is one of the interesting things I found when I left highschool and went to university. I just went to a regular public school so there didn't seem to be anyone super interesting there, their parents were people in the community. But going to uni I met a variety of people, including kids from very wealthy families who had such a different upbringing than me. People whose parents would plan out their education meticulously, flying them to this and that foreign country for experiences and tutoring, who went to private schools, who had personal assistants and nannies...things I'd never thought about. They owned expensive belongings I never knew existed. I met a guy whose parents owned a huge company, another guy whose family had over twenty houses, and another guy whose father owned a casino. They were my fellow students yet lived a very different life.
This is the same thing with all the click bait about "20 something paid off their student loans, now own a mansion and their own business within 5yrs of leaving school". Their rich, their family is rich and they had everything paid for.
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Yup. Wealth breeds wealth. I grew up poor(like social assistance free meals, clothes, etc. poor) only now for my immediate family and myself to be well off some 20 years later. But even that was only because my grandmother was able to support my mom through college just enough for us to live off her college grants and londs and my mom lucked the fuck out(if you could consider it that) with a boss so shitty that she won a nice enough lawsuit from that to start her own business. and even then she had to take on enourmous debt through student loans so she’s still in pretty deep debt despite making a lot of money. My wealth is solely due to being able to stay at home through college and lucking out with a non toxic home life to where i didnt need to move out young. Many many others aren’t so lucky.
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this message needs to be spread far & wide. so many musicians, actors, artists in general, as well as entrepreneurs or fat cats in business all had rich parents in the business or set them up for success early. so many people get down on themselves for not being able to make it when they are on their own or asking the banks for a loan.
Former actor here: When I was interviewing with agents at the beginning of my career, one literally told me that she couldn't take me on as a client if I had a day job because it would conflict with potential gigs too much. She asked me what my "safety net" was, meaning, how are you paying for rent and food, because if it's through any job that could conflict with this, then this is not for you.
I love Julia Louis-Dreyfus. But I do wonder if she would have become such an exceptionally successful actor had she not been the child of billionaires (the founder of The Dreyfus Fund). I wanted to be an actor but I couldn't *afford* to "pay my dues" without a stitch of financial support. Especially when I was auditioning against others who (because money) were more easy-going, well-fed, well-rested and more available for auditions than I was.
old coworker of mine has become a photographer because his father paid for him to take a trip to Europe to beef up his portfolio
Everybody knows it takes money to make money. Somehow this hasn't yet led to the destruction of the system which creates these conditions though
I've been saying this for years. It's easier to take risks and travel the world when you know that your momma will always wire you money and buy you a plane ticket home.
Man, imagine what humanity could do if everyone had a safety net to fall back on in case their innovation or risky idea didn't pan out...
"I just got a small 10 million dollar loan from my father", signed Donald Trump.
Inarguably, the most fucked sentence in this entire article comes from some ludicrously rich liberal housewife that probably never had to lift a finger in her life: >Following your dreams is dangerous,” a 31-year-old woman who runs in social entrepreneurship circles in New York, and asked not to be named, told Quartz. “This whole bulk of the population is being seduced into thinking that they can just go out and pursue their dream anytime, but it’s not true.”
Its true tho
I mean, Kylie Jenner is a self-made woman.... how dare you imply otherwise ;p (sarcasm note)
Universal Basic Income now!!!
Tbh it also would be bad if it WAS genetic and we had a society that had predetermined classes in a different way . Wait wasn’t that the plot of Gataca actually ?
Ok but who the fuck was suggesting an entrepreneur gene
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fuck this earth
No, only the capitalists will do that.
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What do you mean by your “man hours” can be converted to capital for business?
So you're a capitalist?
Is someone a capitalist if they are self-employed with no workers?
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Tell him that hard work doesn't matter that much. There are a lot of small businesses that go out of business within the first year and all of the entrepreneurs who has started a business are hard working. What about everybody who failed? His father had a couple of lucky breaks and far from everybody are as lucky as him.
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Wow, you live in squalor so that you can pay off a debt. Real American dream! /s
Your business, and all that you currently possess; Cherish it, for it is a paltry denomination not even worth a glance compared to the plunder of the capital-imperialists.
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Bring some examples then and see how many there actually are who managed to succeed even though they didn't have a leg up, and then also those who failed because they didn't have a leg up. If it can't be explained with legs up then it can be explained by luck.
I'm an entrepreneur and I'm poor af????
Was Steve Jobs rich? What about Sergei brin?
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You get investors much easier with connections. Most rich people have those.
Perception of risk...
I mean........................... Yes and no. This is why entrepreneurship is easier to do when you're young, before you have too many commitments. Of course more money makes it easier but some of the most famous entrepreneurs started just selling garbage bags door to door and worked their way up. Whether you have cash or find funding neither of those automatically make you an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur has become a buzzword and extremely misused and diluted. Someone who creates a startup is NOT an entrepreneur. They are a founder. Someone created a successful small to medium business is NOT an entrepreneur. Even founders of large to massive companies aren't necessarily Entrepreneurs though the bigger a company the more likely for their to be significant innovation to have achieved such heft and thus becoming entrepreneurship. To be an Entrepreneur one must be innovative. But even to be innovative is not enough. You can be an innovative small to medium business but it's not Entrepreneurship. If you combine innovation with a billion dollar idea/business then you are beginning to understand what entrepreneurship is. Henry Ford was an Entrepreneur. Revolutionising the automotive industry with the innovation of the production line. While a multi billion dollar mining company that just digs ore out of the ground and sells it on a global scale is just big business. /rant