Would dropping out of Harvard and founding Microsoft land someone in the cemetery?
I think one of the biggest differences between risk takers and the cautious is simply that risk takers care less about what they risk. They know they can get by without it. By contrast, even many of those within startups, it seems, would start their own, because of the hit that they're need to take to their way of living.
Finally, luck favors the prepared mind. One of the things that Billg was great at was that, whenever he happened upon an opportunity, he pounced on it. Once the Altair came out (with no programming language), he and Paul Allen tried the audacious feat of programming one without one. He dropped out of college, moved to New Mexico, and started selling what he could. When he heard the IBM/DR-DOS deal, he scrambled to put together an operating system for them, and so how valuable retaining the rights would be.
Others just let these things drift by. But he went hunting for them, and had such a sense of a long term version that he could figure out what would fit, and what wouldn't.
I would refine your statement, by observing that Bill Gates was the only son of one of the wealthiest and most influential families in the country. He simply never had that much to lose in the first place.
Wealth can and (usually) goes the other way - since they have inherited enough of a rich-kid pension that they don't need to work, progeny of rich kids can choose to not work (or maybe be an average writer). I can't think of many examples of rich kids starting successful companies.
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Would dropping out of Harvard and founding Microsoft land someone in the cemetery?
I think one of the biggest differences between risk takers and the cautious is simply that risk takers care less about what they risk. They know they can get by without it. By contrast, even many of those within startups, it seems, would start their own, because of the hit that they're need to take to their way of living.
Finally, luck favors the prepared mind. One of the things that Billg was great at was that, whenever he happened upon an opportunity, he pounced on it. Once the Altair came out (with no programming language), he and Paul Allen tried the audacious feat of programming one without one. He dropped out of college, moved to New Mexico, and started selling what he could. When he heard the IBM/DR-DOS deal, he scrambled to put together an operating system for them, and so how valuable retaining the rights would be.
Others just let these things drift by. But he went hunting for them, and had such a sense of a long term version that he could figure out what would fit, and what wouldn't.
I would refine your statement, by observing that Bill Gates was the only son of one of the wealthiest and most influential families in the country. He simply never had that much to lose in the first place.
Wealth can and (usually) goes the other way - since they have inherited enough of a rich-kid pension that they don't need to work, progeny of rich kids can choose to not work (or maybe be an average writer). I can't think of many examples of rich kids starting successful companies.