America's Healthy Infatuation With Entrepreneurs | Hacker News Reader

America's Healthy Infatuation With Entrepreneurs

theatlantic.com

56 pointsedw51915 comments

I think the tech/startup industry has a large affect on a lot of people's thinking, especially at a young (high-schoolish) age. The startup ideas pushed by pg, and the success that people like Zuckerburg and Jobs have had, have shown that success doesn't have to mean wearing suit. This influence will grow as technology grows deeper ingrained in our lives.

Take myself. I went to an elite (Canadian) boarding school, where the idea of success was largely seen to be Wall Street/Business/Politics.

About 60-80& of my grad class went to get their Commerce/Business undergrads. I easily could have too.

I was not a nerd, more of an all-rounder. I was captain of my hockey, soccer and rugby teams. I acted in plays, went to debate competitions, took the hardest math/sciences courses I could. Kids like me, especially kids like me from my school, usually went to a prestigious university and eventually ended up in managements/business/politics.

I chose what is probably the nerdiest/least prestigious university in Canada. Why? Paul Graham, and cause they have the best engineering program in the country. Seriously. I know that sounds like some corny hero worship shit, but his essays almost single-handedly convinced me that I needed to "Stay Upwind", get a technical degree, and start my own company.

The infatuation with entrepreneurs inspires like the Apolo program probably did 50 years ago. It's good for the community.

> "I chose what is probably the nerdiest/least prestigious university in Canada."

Nerdiest for sure, but I'll object to "least prestigious". Sure, old money prefers Queens, or UofT - and you're right that UBC, McGill, etc have more clout within Canada. That's the operative keyword.

Waterloo's main strength is not how well it's regarded within its own country (most people are unaware of its engineering and CS reputation), but rather its reputation abroad. I work in the US now, and practically no one has heard of any of the big Canadian universities. University of Toronto... that's probably in Toronto, right? McGill? shrug Waterloo is one of the few Canadian universities that has a near bulletproof reputation outside of the country, so I'd consider it far from low-prestige.

In any case, I want to raise a second point:

> "the success that people like Zuckerburg and Jobs have had, have shown that success doesn't have to mean wearing suit"

I think the lesson is deeper and more important than just this. I think the more important lesson (and I hope one that catches on) is that success can come from creating and disrupting things. I think one of the most disappointing trends in recent history is the concentration of success on people whose main skill is playing the system. Our society's collective adoration (or more recently, mild hatred) on bankers and investors is proof of this.

When I went through school, I saw many talented engineers heed the siren call of Wall Street. To me, it's a tremendous waste of talent - all of these smart people could be creating things, disrupting staid, complacent industries. But instead they were inventing new and improved derivatives and speeding up trading to squeeze the most out of the existing system as they can.

I for one hope that the very public success of people like Jobs and Zuckerberg drives home to some people the worthwhileness of creation. Hopefully we can stem the flow of talent into finance and bring some people back onto the side of, well, building shit.

Man, I grew up in Canada too (kind of), and totally bought into success = suit ideology. Went into economics, then switched to engineering (UBC). I came across PG's essays <1 year ago, and it was life changing to say the least. I often tell my American wife that you don't go to a party in Canada and say you're an entrepreneur, because that translates to something between unemployable (permanently unemployed) and/or some kind of a small time crook like a used car chopper. She does not believe me when I tell her that for new grads from our engineering program the most sought after company to work for was BC Hydro – the gas and power utility company, as an Engineer In Training. Maybe it’s just a BC thing, where most of the money is imported from China or the US, I have no idea, and had no idea.

I can see UW (I'm assuming) being the nerdiest, but the least prestigious university in Canada? It was well-thought of when I started there in the mid-90s.

I would've picked Laurentian or Nippissing or some other Northern Ontario school for 'least prestigious'.

Your right, its not the least prestigious, but its nowhere near most other large universities in terms of clout (except within CS/the tech scene).

Must not mock "elite boarding school" and "your" and "its"...

I took ETL last semester and loved it! My favorite speaker was Aaron Levie. He was the prototype of the typical silicon valley startup story. built/launched his product from his dorm room in 2005. dropped out of school. created a company worth millions of dollars... etc. I think the reason my peers and I look up to entrepreneurs is because they are (as the article says) "living examples of the exceptional untapped potential within each of us". Success stories like Aaron's makes us believe that we can change the world. Sadly, for every successful entrepreneur that gets invited to speak at Stanford there are a thousand others who have failed. If it were up to me I think we should have another seminar to counter balance ETL, an antithesis of ETL, where unknown entrepreneurs can come to speak about their failures. so that students can see the other less glamorous side of entrepreneurship. In fact, David Friedberg, who spoke at ETL a few weeks back and his advice was why you should not do a startup. There's an article, from an ETL student's perspective on David's speech here - http://rainmakerslive.com/startup-thoughts/why-you-shouldnt-....

in fact, learning from the failures of others is probably more useful than learning from the successes.

Very true but I think perhaps people are conditioned to think that they can replicate the success if they learn from successful people first hand. But I think people who have failed have a lot to teach us as well. As Edison once said,"I have not failed 1,000 times. I have successfully discovered 1,000 ways to NOT make a light bulb." :)

"And perhaps this is why we look so wistfully at entrepreneurs. They seem to exude the raw passion that experience has taught us to modulate, the vivid emotion that we've learned to suppress, the intense energy that we learn must be channeled, the unreasonable audacity that has been replaced by sensible objectives. We cheer for them because they represent our youthful hopes, our idealism, our ambitions and our dreams. And when these entrepreneurs defy the extraordinary odds, and succeed, we rejoice, for at the moment we can sense, if only fleetingly, the exceptional untapped potential within each of us. We rejoice, and wonder: what if?"

So essentially what the writer is saying (in this paragraph) is that people like entrepreneurs for the same reason monster and invader movies were big at various times (50's because of the soviet threat as only one example) or with any movie genre or Tv. Say, Kung Fu because we all would like to just chop down the bully.

But how healthy is it for those who are influenced by the infatuation?

Sure it's great for people in the peanut gallery to read about entrepreneurs, and those who make money from the entire ecosystem. But is it realistic for young people who chase a dream thinking they will be the next big thing and then pass up a more secure opportunity? (Maybe the job market is bad today but it might not be 2 years from now.)

I spent years taking karate lessons. One day I broke my hand in a sparring match and dropped out. Having more time to study, my grades improved. The grade increase allowed me to get into an Ivy League college.

“A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at.”

- Bruce Lee

Today's famous entrepreneurs have a powerful platform. I've heard countless tales of people going into science after being inspired by the astronauts on their moonwalks. Not everyone is going to become a Zuckerberg, just like almost no one becomes an astronaut.

But these entrepreneurial idols highlight that it is possible to be successful by creating value through innovation. We need more people to go into engineering and product design. Americans need it in order to stay relevant as an economy, just as the US needed scientists during the Space Race.

Zuckerberg and Jobs have glamorized the concept of "geek". Maybe this glamor will attract power-seeking people who want to be a rich CEO. But more likely, it will attract a wide variety of people (maybe even minorities and women) into careers that create value for our economy.

"I've heard countless tales of people going into science after being inspired by the astronauts on their moonwalks"

Similar, I remember reading somewhere (no reference on this though) that many went into the law after watching "LA Law" in the 80's.

"it will attract a wide variety of people (maybe even minorities and women) into careers that create value for our economy"

On a societal level that is fine. But on an individual level maybe not as much. Any person evaluating risk has to focus on the down side not just the upside of whatever decision they make. If they are making the decision for the wrong reason that could be a problem for them. Where the "wrong reason" is thinking it is a way to get rich or extending college dorm life.

No person can know what is best for another person. I mean really know; sure you can say we have some responsibility to the youth to nudge them in a good direction.

But my point is you can't really _know_.

I have a problem that you are essentially telling little Jimmy that he's _probably_ not going to be Bill Gates, so why try? Better to go to a good school, get a good job, and be successful.

Only you can't and shouldn't define success for another human being.

For me the only way I can be happy is if I do myself Justice. That means trying to accomplish the things I want to accomplish. Note I said trying. You know it doesn't really actually matter that I do it or not, it matters that I am actively trying - that's called living life. The journey is your life. The goal is just an end. And who wants to be at the end?

/end philosophical rant

You're right, a lot of the people who decide to "chase the dream" do fail and they do pass up more secure opportunities, but most of the times that's a good thing.

The experience and lessons learned when starting a business are invaluable, but of course, everyone who fails has to decide for themselves whether they want to continue or just settle for something less or more secure.

I know I hated myself for passing up a few good opportunities (especially when my big plans went belly up), but I wouldn't trade the hustle (and stress) of doing what I like for anything else.

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