

The Mall Bathroom Test to Identify Entrepreneurs - Mistone
http://www.smallbiztrends.com/2008/06/the-mall-bathroom-test-to-identify-entrepreneurs.html/

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nloadholtes
Ugh. I think the first sentence of the last paragraph sums up the article
best:

"Maybe this just means that we’re not very good at predicting who will become
an entrepreneur."

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nirmal
It is a stretch to call this an article. I also think the title should be "The
Mall Bathroom JOKE for Identifying Entrepreneurs".

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mrtron
Joke would imply humour, which would not be appropriate either :)

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nirmal
touche

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dpapathanasiou
This is a candidate for a downvote.

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d0mine
Remind me again, what is the male/female ratio among startup founders funded
by Y Combinator? And does it contradict the article?

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apathy
A predictor in a poorly specified model can perform just fine until you look a
bit closer and identify stronger predictors, or address confounding factors
explicitly. eg.

IFF women are more risk-averse THEN less women entrepreneurs IFF time lost to
childbirth is a factor THEN less " "

In the former case, risk aversion drives the predictor, and linkage with
gender makes it appear as though gender is a strong predictor. After breaking
the predictor in two, a much more informative fit is generated. Et cetera. I
make no claims as to the correctness of the above. But I am dubious that
vagina possession is the kiss of death for starting one's own business.
Confounding seems likely.

Ratcheting up or down the sample size does not address confounding. Are women
incapable of becoming successful entrepreneurs? Oprah would probably suggest
not. Are there numerous factors working against them? Yes. Far more
interesting is to probe which characteristics are overwhelmingly female and
which are shared among sexes.

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radu_floricica
For all the blog posts twice the length and half the substance, this actually
makes a point, and doesn't take a lot of time to do it. Good enough.

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DaniFong
I'm not sure this is accurate. The proportion of female founders must have
changed over time, while the demand for an extroverted, independent,
perspective, confident personality likely remains. And for example in third
world countries, it's to a large extent the women starting their own home
businesses. And there's really no data here, so all it is is the voicing of
stereotypes. Unless some _surprise_ is communicated, there really isn't much
information here.

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mynameishere
There's a very strong correlation between "yes" responses to the question "Are
you an entrepreneur?" and that person being an entrepreneur.

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iloveyouocean
If you are reading the comments before the article:

Summary - Men are twice as likely to start businesses as women. Other traits
are (psychological) are not as good as gender at predicting who will be an
entrepreneur.

Note: "The Mall Bathroom Test" is a gimmick. Men go into the men's bathroom,
women into the women's. Thats it.

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jkent
It also assumes that entrepreneurs have time to go to the mall.

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edw519
It also assumes that entrepreneurs have time to go to the bathroom.

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Mistone
like the comments in the post say, its one hell of a compelling title, author
gets some props for that, even if the content lacks real substance, it was the
first thing I clicked in my reader.

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lpgauth
lol, why would someone even write something like this?

everyone knows men is superior :)

(kidding!)

Actually, I find it surprising that there aren't more women as they are
usually way more hard working then men but I guess they don't have the guts to
take the risk.

