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Comment by AlexTWithBeard | Hacker News Reader

A poor person betting everything... a poor person usually doesn't have much, besides the time and dedication.

There’s a big difference between poor and zero, and a poor person betting on a startup can hit zero really quick.

At zero, you cannot pay rent and are likely to get evicted. Once evicted you are potentially NFA, which means you can’t get a bank card posted to you if you have problems with your card. How can you pay for food? Where can you use the bathroom? What about the electricity bill before you got evicted? The electricity bill that was late and now unpaid that’s ruining your credit score? Now you have bad credit and will find it harder getting a flat.

The above sentences where not chronologically cohesive because there’s so much working against the poor and those at zero, and I’m on mobile, I couldn’t take an hour to type it all out.

How on earth do you expect a poor person to do a startup, when they can barely feed themselves and keep a roof over their head?

Same way my great-grandfather did it. He preferred the risks associated with going to America over the known outcome of staying in his little village.

Most of immigration happened during high risk dangerous and unstable times. Most immigrants were not bored of super safe and stable life where they came from. They were running away, because original place was dangerous.

So then you're comparing the know risks of war and famine to the unknown risks in the target country. Which for a lot of American history has been war and crop failure.

Comparing your great grandfather’s situation to a poor person today doesn’t make sense to me.

Their choices, consequences, and access to information are vastly different.

There's less risk today. If your company fails, you're in debt, but you probably won't die in a ditch.

So why not jump feet first into what you want to do? To quote the eminent Shia LeBouf "It's you're life, don't let your dreams be dreams. Just do it"

Its easy to say platitudes from rich people.

When there's little/no social net when you fail, failure is disastrous.

I'm diabetic. I'm nearly chained to a company with a decent medical plan, since our "wonderful" country has little to impetus to fix medicine. So failing means 'not able to go to the doctor and not afford my drugs'.

Failure also means 'not affording rent'.

Failure also means being unemployed, and no way to get unemployment.

So where being a business owner means it could free my way out of poverty, the %success rate for me absolutely must be balanced with the failure rate and the ramifications aforementioned.

Mr LaBeouf comes from a broken home. His father has struggled with drugs and alcohol to self medicate his Vietnam War PTSD. He started performing at age 10, pretended to be his own manager to get signed with an agency. He's exactly the "live without a net" kind of guy we're talking about.

So if we don't struggle like him, and make multiple breaks (read: luck), and get into that career, we don't deserve to have basic needs met?

Rags to riches (read:Horatio Alger) stories should absolutely not be the basis of social assistance. If you want to see what happens to those that don't win, look no further than the "Smoke N Lotto" store at all whom lose the lottery every day.

But also free land, and a reliable market for the goods produced on it.

GP's point of view: A poor person can have a small safety net that separates him from absolute poverty and homelessness. If they start their own business, fail, and end up without enough money to pay for the rent, the consequences could be terrible. They also have a finite time to save enough for a descent retirement. Spending several years on a startup with a high fail rate can dramatically reduce the quality of their old days.

There is opportunity cost (of a stable industry job) that the educated but poor person is foregoing.

Note that by not foregoing that opportunity cost the poor person can save up enough of a safety net for his children to take a risk.

Generations are important. A poor person with a family is best not taking risks. However they can bring up enough of a safety net for their children.

Heathcare that was provided by employer before and house in low crime area, say.

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