I don't see what's emotional about it. I view the assertion that being a risk-taker in the startup world is synonymous with being privileged as absurd and adolescent. I also explained why I think the notion is offensive and worthy of being condemned.
> I think it's fair to recognize the uncomfortable truth that in most startups, rewards for success are distributed according to a power law distribution.
Can you elaborate on this a bit? I'm not sure I understand what exactly you mean by this.
"The factors that affect the supply of entrepreneurs are important but poorly understood. We study a sample of individuals who choose either to be employees or to run their own businesses. Four conclusions emerge. First, consistent with the existence of borrowing constraints on potential entrepreneurs, we find that the probability of self-employment depends markedly upon
whether the individual ever received an inheritance or gift.
Second, when directly questioned in interview surveys, potential entrepreneurs say that raising capital is their principal problem. Third, consistent with our theoretical framework's predictions, the self-employed have higher levels of job and life satisfaction than employees. Fourth, childhood personality measurements
and psychological test scores are of almost no help in predicting who runs their own business later in life. It is access to start-up capital that matters."
Further into the study:
"Attitude to risk is not the central characteristic that determines who becomes an entrepreneur"
tl;dr "adolescent" study demonstrates risk is a convenient narrative that justifies why some people can have nice things and others can't. Access to capital is what counts.
"does not automatically mean one is more privileged than those who choose to work for startups,"
It does in a way. Founders eating ramen, working long, odd hours, for an idea that may not pay off at all; Who can walk away from a startup and brush it off as experience. An employee doesn't get that opportunity. An employee also doesn't take the risk. They may never have the opportunity to take these kinds of risks.
I have no idea, but a statistical correlation does not justify the blanket characterization made by the article, where "risk-taker" is essentially held as a synonym for "privileged".
It diminishes the accomplishments of entrepreneurs, and the sacrifices they've made. If they only have large equity stakes in the companies they founded because they're "privileged" it casts them as undeserving of the wealth they acquired.
Isn't it self-evident? It harms their standing and reputation, in being cast as in possession of wealth they are not morally entitled to. It's defamation.
"Shame on the author for making such a ridiculous blanket characterization about entrepreneurs that discounts their sacrifice, in the name of brain-dead socialist ideology."
Yes I admit that part conveys emotion, but that's not the part the parent commenter was citing. I think emotion has its uses, like defending entire classes of people from being unfairly denigrated by simplistic blanket characterizations.
> I think it's fair to recognize the uncomfortable truth that in most startups, rewards for success are distributed according to a power law distribution.
Can you elaborate on this a bit? I'm not sure I understand what exactly you mean by this.