Molson Hart

One thing that's less obvious is how reasonable goals change with the universe you're in. In this universe, it's practical for X% of people to become entrepreneurs. That number is far less for a peasant 4 centuries ago, and depends on many factors 2/X

Some of those factors: availability of capital, cost of capital, realistic odds of success, career options. 99% of the people who "would become a founder no matter what" would be better off with a corporate job paying 5M/year in the counterfactual world where they could get it

FAANG pays something like 300k/year to talent. The decision to found a company has a higher bar than the world where they paid 100k, which was like 10 years ago? (All salary info is anecdotal, I believe @danluu had some of this data?) 4/X

Many founders run businesses that should not exist because they lose money. As a rule of thumb, if you can't convince VC to fund you *and* you can't turn a profit, your startup should not exist. I don't think there are very many counterexamples. 5/X

Should probably say if you can't convince *anyone* to fund you. I talked to someone who spent 2 years building software before realizing nobody would pay for it, even though they had free users who allegedly loved it. 6/X

There's a difference between a new business and a startup. I don't have experience with startups so I can't speak much to it, just that I feel it's reasonable to continue if you can raise money or are profitable. 7/X

https://www.bls.gov/oes/2018/may/oes111011.htm … Median pay for CEOs is 189k. Probably skews lower for businesses started recently or business run by their founders. But this is a reasonable estimate of what reasonable success looks like. 8/X

If someone can get better than that in the corporate world and doesn't have a particularly great idea, then I'd advise them to go corporate. You can still run a business in your free time, and quit if/when you reach profitability. 9/X