
You Don't Have What It Takes - siddg
http://calacanis.com/2015/09/20/you-dont-have-what-it-takes/
======
sharemywin
Giving up after reading an article telling to quit. Definitely is a sign you
ain't got what it takes.

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
I think you figured out the post :-)

------
mildbow
Ugh.

Don't listen to a puffed up experts or self-assigned gate-keepers rehashing
generic fluff (click-baity title included!) to get out another tired blogpost.

The only takeaway from this post should be: find mentors so you can accelerate
your learning.

Now, whether you want to accelerate learning how to be an employee or to be a
founder is up to you.

Because ain't nothing to it, but to do it.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I didn't see it that way at all. In the current environment (especially
somewhere like HN), there's a constant chorus saying that A Startup Is What
You Should Do. Pointing out that it comes with the real possibility of
destroying your personal finances is in fact a valuable service to those
thinking of doing a startup.

It's not all rainbows and unicorns out there.

~~~
mildbow
How big a deal really, in the grand scheme of things, is the destruction of
personal finances in your early 20s to 30s? If it helps, compare starting a
startup to getting a PhD or MBA etcs. In most other skilled professions,
people start actually having a career in their 30s anyway.

When you think about loss, consider things you can recoup vs things you can't.

You can recoup money. You can't recoup ... well .. pretty much anything else.

~~~
HiLo
Considering most on average do fail, most people will never recover from this
financial damage before they die, particularly later in life when the
differences are most pronounced and the marginal dollar is much more valuable
due to rising health-care cost and dwindling income. So finance says you're
wrong on that one.

You really can't recoup the money. $1,000 invested at 23 is worth $37,165 at
75, assuming 7.2% historical equity risk premium. $1,000 invested at 30 is
worth $22,844 at 75 with the same 7.2% growth.

Your comment seems to imply that people can strike it rich if they just pull
the level enough times, but your comment is actually false for the majority of
people that read your post.

~~~
mildbow
Yeah, I know about compound interest. Truly.

What I was trying to say is money can mostly be made up _even_ if you don't
strike it rich. Same amount of money? Maybe not. But enough to have the same
order lifestyle as you would otherwise? Definitely. I was trying to allude to
this by referencing other professions where they don't really start until
their 30s.

Consider also that you seem you think of money as something that you accrue
strictly as a function of time. If you are doing retirement planning strictly
based on your 401k, then you probably aren't planning that well. Lots of
things that worked for our parents won't pan out well for us. Ask non-STEM
majors looking for jobs in the past decade.

Anyway, starting a startup _solely_ to get in the game/get rich is a losing
proposition modulo how connected you are.

My point was the negatives, as a founder, are probably constrained to monetary
ones. Which at the end of the day isn't that bad of a deal. It's just money.
Which makes it a very well leveraged bet IMO.

------
cJ0th
Even though I am not keen of the arrogant tone this article carries I have to
agree with its message.

I find the space rocket analogy useful: If a rocket goes into the wrong orbit
it will never reach its goal.

Most people can't reach what they aspire to no matter what. By the time you
are 18, probably even earlier, your potential is fixed. I am not saying you
can't start programming in your 30s and become really good at it or that you
can't pick up Chinese when you've retired and become fluent in it even though
you haven't learnt a foreign language before. But whether or not you can do
that is determined way earlier. Be it genes, the social surroundings of your
childhood or the quality of the elementary school you went to.

The only way to avoid disappointment on a tremendous scale is figuring out as
early as possible what you're good at and then spend most of your time honing
your talent.

The funny thing is: people who are talented in a certain way succeed even when
they do everything "wrong" according to the "experts" who are revered by all
the people who will always suck at what they aspire to. For example, I know an
established electronic music producer who constantly bought new gear that he
didn't know how to operate. So he sold those items as they (surprise) didn't
give him the "pro-sound" and bought some more. Now most experts probably said:
"The instrument isn't the important factor. Don't buy any more gear until
you've mastered what you've already got." Now, people who don't make it
probably would have taken this advice to their heart and 5 years later they'd
still not put out a record that somebody would buy. Instead they became some
sort of experts themselves who have ridiculous discussion on minor technical
details and flame wars in web forums.

People who archive something great possess the right tacit knowledge that
others lack in their "ROM", i.e. the stuff you got during the time before your
birth and before you leave school.

------
puredemo
Sometimes this is true.

And many people are smart and strategic enough to be able to launch successful
startups while sacrificing very little personally.

Persistence matters more than personal sacrifice, in my mind.

------
ivraatiems
I'm really not a fan of the "you have to sell your house!" rhetoric. Why is it
that in startups, people who do unethical/obviously stupid things in pursuit
of a rare chance at possible money are considered desirable?

Is there data that suggests that such people actually found and lead
successful startups?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
I don't think you have to sell your house. But in a startup, with at least 80%
probability, you are going to be faced with a choice along the lines of "Do I
sell my house to keep this thing running for another month, and hope it takes
off? Or do I kill it now, and write off the last year and all the money I've
already lost?"

Note: the 80% probability claim is based on my understanding of the
probability of a startup failing.

------
wanderfowl
Wow, that was amazingly condescending. "Too many students, not enough
teachers" is real, and likely applicable here, but that could have been said
in 40 words. And it sure as hell didn't need the air of "I'm God's gift to
Silicon Valley."

~~~
jasonmcalacanis
I don't actually believe I'm God's gift to anyone.... I put my words out there
to start conversations with folks. My goal really is to learn every day, which
is why I invest in 30-40 startups a year: handing out with folks who are
trying to "fix" what's broken in the world makes you really, really smart --
even if you're a C student like myself. :-)

