
Start-up culture is corrupting our youth and killing real entrepreneurship - mpweiher
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/11765609/Start-up-culture-is-corrupting-our-youth-and-killing-real-entrepreneurship.html
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gumby
Oh yawn, "kids these days".

Many people are doing startups or "startups" because that's what they are
being told to do (as opposed to being encouraged to do). Nothing wrong with
that. Many of these businesses are really just making a feature. So the seed
investor who cashes out soon via an acquihire is really more of an agent. So
what? And of course many businesses are just retail shops like people have
always started; but when they are started online and not funded by a bank loan
(which young people have trouble getting anyway) they are called "startups".
But they are simply small businesses (hence my startup and "startup"
distinction above).

Folks are still starting more traditional startups all the time, both
bootstrapped and externally funded. Encouraging more people to do this is
hardly bad news.

------
unabst
There really is only one myth that needs to be busted for the universe to
retain order.

"they rush out of university to start companies regardless of having no
experience of working in the private sector, thus increasing the chances of
failure."

These successful entrepreneurs never rushed out of university to become
entrepreneurs. They were successful entrepreneurs already. When you're so
successful, staying in school stops making sense. And if you're at that point,
you aren't taking a risk by quitting school. The risk is with staying there.

Bill Microsoft, Steve Apple, Mark Facebook, Larry and Sergey Google, Elon
Tesla. They all tried to stay in school. They were good students with no
intentions of leaving.

So just like any other college student trying to balance school and work and
play, replace the work and play with entrepreneurship, and when you are
successful, do what makes the most sense. If you graduate, then get a job and
do the same. Now replace school and play with entrepreneurship.

These kids who quit school just want to quit and are using entrepreneurship as
an excuse. Good for them. No one can say if it's better or worse for them. But
if anyone thinks they're mimicking successful entrepreneurship behavior,
they're misinformed, be it the students dropping out or the media portraying
it as such.

Good entrepreneurs quit their day job when they have to. Not when they want
to. And they have to because they're successful already.

~~~
w1ntermute
> Bill Microsoft, Steve Apple, Mark Facebook, Larry and Sergey Google, Elon
> Tesla. They all tried to stay in school. They were good students with no
> intentions of leaving.

This is false for Jobs and Musk. It wasn't until 4 years after Jobs dropped
out from Reed that Woz showed him the Apple I, and Musk started Zip2 with $28K
of his dad's money after dropping out of a Stanford physics PhD with no
specific plans.

It's only semi-true for Gates (Gates and Allen had obtained a deal with MITS
over the summer when he chose not to return to Harvard in the fall), but
Harvard allows students to take indefinite leaves of absence, so he took a
risk-free path.

It was only after the rise of the internet made exponential growth in the
space of a few months a real possibility that you saw Page, Brin, and
Zuckerberg leave college with very clear evidence of growth to point to.

~~~
unabst
Good points.

For Steve Jobs:

"If I had never dropped in on that single calligraphy course in college, the
Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts."

Also I looked up Larry Oracle, and for him he quit school because of a family
tragedy.

Elon also quit his phd at a new school after 2 days, which seems more like he
changed his mind than "dropped out".

Of course, life is complex. But the point is, none of these people were anti-
academic or anti-school. They were anti-wasting time and pro-opportunity, but
they were never for dropping out.

------
swivelmaster
This isn't an article, it's an opinion piece with a bunch of anecdotal
evidence and random quotes to support the author's case.

The caption "Nor are they Zuckerberg" is outrageously condescending and
judgmental. "None of these people are smart enough to become successful
entrepreneurs," judges the author, "and they shouldn't even bother trying."

Is it a surprise that lots of people have the wrong idea about what it takes
to be successful with a startup? No, and it shouldn't be a surprise.

Just like any profession that pop culture heaps praise upon, there will be
many who have an unrealistic view about what it takes to gain success. It's
the same as starting a rock band - some people are going to be outrageously
successful and most won't, but most who fail will gain experience and will not
regret having tried.

For those who think that this is a problem, try to fix it - go give a talk to
some young entrepreneurs about how hard it is. Let them know what the risks
are and how much work it's going to take. Try to help them be better equipped
for the challenges ahead.

~~~
iampherocity
If you replace entrepreneurs with journalist, you get the same picture. You
have some top tier, and then you get every hack that writes a web column that
"shouldn't even bother trying".

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gaius
I'm not worried about founders. It's the early stage employees, without the
experience of how the game is played, who will be exploited.

~~~
orasis
I was a shitty startup founder in my 20s. Despite my failings all of my
employees went on to be incredibly successful. The chaos and hustle is an
invaluable education.

~~~
mailshanx
Have you written about your (and your employees's) experiences? I would
certainly find that a very valuable read.

~~~
gaius
Twice, when I was much younger, I was suckered by the stock option scam,
that's enough for me to know that it is systemic. I was immature then,
relatively, and I experienced the downsides of believing that because you are
young and everyone tells you you are talented, you are invincible and going to
be rich...

Now I advise others, salary is THE most important thing, in fact working for a
startup should carry a salary premium, because of the uncertainty and
pressure. Crunch time happens but if it is always crunch time, something is
going wrong, and you should look at what your hourly rate actually is. The VCs
won't burn out or get carpal tunnel. The founders will swan into their next
round of funding. No-one cares about you, so you have to care about yourself.

When people talk about a shortage of people in tech, they specifically mean, a
shortage of people experienced enough to be useful but not so experienced that
they understand the game...

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oneshot908
It's hard for me to criticize a business model that makes money. If VC is
willing to fund Acqui-hires As a Saleable Service, and then pay top dollar for
its figurative prom queens, then why _shouldn 't_ people create and pursue
them?

Sure, it's more mating display/beauty contest than entrepeneurialism, but are
we not entertained? In the meantime, how else is one supposed to get the cash
to bootstrap their big idea in the first place?

It's kind of like how John Williams wrote the theme to _Lost in Space_ long
before he wrote the soundtrack to _Star Wars_, no? Or, ya know, Paypal before
Tesla and SpaceX.

~~~
danieltillett
While I agree with you there can still be externalities from this ecosystem.
Only a very small percentage of people are able to succeed using this model
and for the other 99.99% it would have been better if they built a business
focused on something a little more long term.

This rip-and-flip startup model is really just a poorly disguised form of
gambling. Sure every week someone wins a massive payout, but for society as a
whole it is a negative.

~~~
oneshot908
In my experience, the success rate is a lot higher than 0.01%, I'd guess it to
be more in the 5-10% range with a little due diligence applied to the idea and
its founders. That's a pretty good bet/gamble for three-letter-title founders
and anyone with equity north of 1% for the remainder of this boom cycle.

But I agree that startups are a terrible proposition for those with 0.5% or
less, which is a matter of choice for the employee who could go get a higher
expected return from any of the big tech companies for equivalent (and maybe
even much less) time and work. This subject has been rehashed many times on
HN.

As for society, um, the US (at least) is a "society" composed of many people
who treat buying state lottery tickets as a retirement plan. MVP startups IMO
are far less toxic than that. That said, when I made a little $$$, the most
toxic thing I encountered was several supposed friends suddenly begging me to
fund their ideas because VC wouldn't. @#%$ that, I have plenty of my own ideas
to bootstrap with my hard-earned cash.

~~~
danieltillett
Is your 5-10% range based on VC funded startups? My number was more across the
entire pool of wantrapenuers and on that basis I am probably being generous.

Yes it is amazing how people react once they realise you have money.

------
marsrover
It bothers me that nobody even tries to bootstrap anything anymore. A lot of
companies would be fine not taking millions from VCs.

~~~
mbesto
Step outside the echo chamber and you'll find tons of bootstrapped and non-vc
backed companies.

~~~
CN7R
My question is, do companies sometime receive backing from VCs to open doors,
and not necessarily because they need funding?

~~~
spitfire
Yes, very often. Just like people go to Harvard or Yale for the name and the
network - not the education.

See Y Combinator now. Which people go to for the name and the network - not
the money.

------
chuckgreenman
This article assumes that companies do best when they are captained by their
founders for as long as possible. I think what we are seeing here is a more
economical solution. Innovators make new things, if the public wants or needs
the new things larger companies with the resources to hire larger teams to
maintain and expand the service acquire them.

Innovators are free to innovate and services eventually get the backing of
established companies.

~~~
greenyoda
_" larger companies with the resources to hire larger teams to maintain and
expand the service acquire them"_

But in many cases, the acquiring companies have no interest in the acquired
product and shut it down immediately. They're only interested in acqui-hiring
the people, who have demonstrated a certain degree of talent in creating a new
product. (In some cases, they also buy the company to eliminate a potential
competitor.)

------
surfmike
I think this article vastly underestimates how hard many of the successful
startups worked to get there. And arguably there are more startups nowadays
with long term ambitious goals (nuclear fusion, energy storage, immunotherapy,
drones/robotics) than we've had in the past. A decline in startup culture
would also lead to less of these ambitious startups as well.

~~~
jackcosgrove
I sometimes wonder though if the pendulum has swung too far from the big
corporate, big science model that dominated when Silicon Valley was born. I
don't know if a decline in startup quantity or even quality would lead to
fewer innovations. Maybe national or corporate labs could pick up the slack. I
think the low rates of entrepreneurship among young people these days (it's
true, startups are flashy but entrepreneurship is declining on the whole)
speaks to something being broken with the current model.

------
Heraclite
I for one am tired of the whole "startup culture", the term is over used.

I'm starting to think startups are a meme pushed by the VC industry.

~~~
Prodigal_Moon
The article really lost me with the line "Unsurprisingly, venture capital
firms – an equal victim of this culture"

In what way is a VC firm a "victim" of investing millions in a startup to try
to get in at the ground level of the next unicorn?

The whole thing is this weird self-fulfilling prophecy cycle. I don't blame
either side of the equation, per se. But it sorta kills me how people think of
this standardized rite of passage now for launching a startup, getting a ton
of money before you've made any, and then exiting. I wouldn't take any of that
for granted.

------
danieltillett
I am also surprised by the rise in the popularity of the term "serial
entrepreneur". I find it amazing that people want to tell the world of all
their previous business failures as though it is something to be proud about.
I haven't failed with my first venture yet I am not proud of all the business
mistakes I have made along the way.

------
gressquel
I see the author is attacking people for selling their startups. But I dont
think he has considered that, people do have alot of ideas in their head. And
when one idea gets traction does that mean you should forget all the other
ideas you had and focus rest of your life on the one?

I think the world will benefit from people presenting their ideas rather than
not.

------
smallgovt
I think this shift towards early liquidity is really good for 2 reasons:

1) Society benefits when people work on what they love and do best. Founders,
with rare exception, are best at innovating and building new things -- not
running large organizations. If we allow founders to exit early, they can work
on their next idea, which maximizes the amount of time they spend doing what
they love (innovating). This is a net good.

2) Liquidity in the form of early exits attracts more founders, which leads to
more overall innovation. I think there's a social judgement against trying to
"make a quick buck" which should be discounted. Real value was created
whenever an acquisition takes place, and this value isn't destroyed when
founders sell -- it just exchanges hands (and sometimes gets transformed).

------
hkmurakami
Has this person completely forgotten about the .com era? All these "problems"
are nothing new.

~~~
m-i-l
I believe the article author is aged around 21, so the dot com boom would not
have been within his living memory.

------
sean_patel
> A whole generation is being trained to sell their companies as quickly as
> possible - rather than doing any actual work to nurture them

Reads like a 'knee-jerk' reaction rant to a changing world. The (financial)
rewards are going from 'build it to last' to 'work your connections to get
funding and work your other connections to sell and exit ASAP'.

Neither approach is the 'right way' or 'wrong way', but I see this situation
more as something in the lines of 'this is how the tech / startup landscape
has turned into, so go with the flow or get burned'.

Thoughts anyone?

~~~
theonemind
I see "build it to last" as better for society at large. Steve Jobs, for
example, believed in the importance of putting things back into the stream of
human consciousness and built Apple. They didn't build it to sell.

~~~
olewhalehunter
>They didn't build it to sell.

except they totally did

people and businesses had no intention of actually pulling paper-based systems
into computational ones, and thus all Steve Jobs had to do was reproduce
office-quality typography and document presentation on a screen, selling 1870s
typewriter workflows as innovation well enough to convince the world they were
revolutionary

~~~
DonHopkins
In the timeless words of the great Bruce Tognazzini [1]:

MEVSGP MPIZ JBKQSI DBAPH TLUM XFEA HRBH CNUDNT PZIZDK VZOPZW DX. TO BE OR NOT
TO BE THAT IS THE GZINCLE FLORTEN GLOFFLE.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

SO CLOSE.... SO VERY CLOSE....

PERHAPS WITH JUST A FEW MORE MONKEYS........

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfMDWhc_ohU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfMDWhc_ohU)

~~~
sean_patel
Love this. Just saw the video. So is it true that real monkeys in the jungle
stepped on the typewriter keys and this genius quote came out of 1 of them???
Fascinating!!!

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princetontiger
Sounds like hedge funds a decade ago.

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baybal2
9 out 10 VC are in red, that's it

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contingencies
UK is too expensive to start much of anything, anyway.

~~~
johnrobins0n
Lol true

