> “It’s hard to take risks if you don’t have a safety net”
Okay, here is a twist: How much do poor people spend on lottery/gambling activity? How much is that proportionally to their income?
From looking at small casinos, betting shops, lottery and online sites (sports) it seems that poor people are risk takers. One reason, in my opinion, is that they have little to lose. They also have really shitty lives and are looking for an escape.
If you were starting a startup alone in Bangladesh vs. starting solo with YC in SF. Building a remote-based startup that sell SaaS online for clients all over the world. Location of clients is everywhere.
Technically, the playing-field is equal. You start a C-Corp from Bangladesh and trade your business. But which one do you think will make it? Which one do you think will raise funding? Or succeed if both do not raise funds?
You live your life trying the optimize a problem. There is a number of steps that if you take, carefully, you'll become rich in some duration of time. You don't know these steps, so you keep searching. You know gradient descent. Life is like that, if you are moving successfully down, you are probably on the right track and so you keep moving on that direction.
However, you start stochastically on a random location and keep trying to find a path that leads somewhere. That's where YC comes in. They help you reduce the surface area of your search. You are less likely to land somewhere futile.
What poor people are missing is discovery of this surface area. It is a very complicated problem for them and they lack resources and education to optimize the problem.
They are hoping that this lottery ticket will help land them directly on the optimized spot. Their lack of understanding of why this doesn't work explain why they can't navigate the surface area.
Of course people have different risk appetites, including poor people.
The point isn't so much about "risk" per se, it's about whether or not there's a viable Plan B.
If I'm working two jobs to barely keep a roof over my head and play the lotto and lose, I'm still keeping a roof over my head (by working two jobs). The odds are long, but the cost of failure is low.
If, on the other hand, I have the Best Startup Idea Ever (and all the necessary skills to make it a reality) then I will still be unable to pursue it. Sure, I'm like 80% certain it's going to be a huge success, but in the 20% case I'm fuuuuuuuuucked so taking a swing at it is a nonstarter.
Here is a crazy thought I had. If you're poor and save a bit money you get less aid. So saving is meaningless. You are stuck in a feedback loop. But if you buy lottery tickets as a way of "savings", you either lose and get full aid, or you win big to achieve poverty escape velocity.
I'm not saying this is true for all poor people, but I wonder if it could be true for some.
Okay, here is a twist: How much do poor people spend on lottery/gambling activity? How much is that proportionally to their income?
From looking at small casinos, betting shops, lottery and online sites (sports) it seems that poor people are risk takers. One reason, in my opinion, is that they have little to lose. They also have really shitty lives and are looking for an escape.
If you were starting a startup alone in Bangladesh vs. starting solo with YC in SF. Building a remote-based startup that sell SaaS online for clients all over the world. Location of clients is everywhere.
Technically, the playing-field is equal. You start a C-Corp from Bangladesh and trade your business. But which one do you think will make it? Which one do you think will raise funding? Or succeed if both do not raise funds?
You live your life trying the optimize a problem. There is a number of steps that if you take, carefully, you'll become rich in some duration of time. You don't know these steps, so you keep searching. You know gradient descent. Life is like that, if you are moving successfully down, you are probably on the right track and so you keep moving on that direction.
However, you start stochastically on a random location and keep trying to find a path that leads somewhere. That's where YC comes in. They help you reduce the surface area of your search. You are less likely to land somewhere futile.
What poor people are missing is discovery of this surface area. It is a very complicated problem for them and they lack resources and education to optimize the problem.
They are hoping that this lottery ticket will help land them directly on the optimized spot. Their lack of understanding of why this doesn't work explain why they can't navigate the surface area.