Life directions
I have always been curious about how the majority of people that are members of this website are always chasing the more prestigious job, that next promotion, the top flight school, or just that next step in the rat race.
To me it just seems like why would you work hundreds of hours a week to line someone elses pockets when you could take a risk and start something of your own. Am I crazy to think that every school should require an entrepreneur course in order to graduate with any kind of degree. I think this would be hugely beneficial to the economy over all. I understand that not everyone is cut out for starting their own company, but to understand the process would be very beneficial to our society. I think it would increase productivity, improve employee loyalty, and promote a more capitalistic society overall.
The biggest problem I see in the country today is the lack of general understanding of how basic economics, and business practices work. Am I crazy to think a mandatory entrepreneur class would change this?
You suffer from 'golden blinders'. If you come from wealth, you can afford to take more risks and have them not work out. If you come from poverty, you'll take insane risks because you already have nothing to lose.
If you come from anywhere in between, ie the middle class, your approach to risk is much more measured. You'd be surprised at how many people have two jobs or a side business (I have both) who are middle class. Thing is, most of them are small and invisible to the guys at the top. Non-compete agreements, taxes, lack of support, over regulation, and bosses who seem flat out hostile to second incomes are the typical roadblocks to many entrepneurs. Again, I'd know, I've had to skate around and work with the compliance department and my bosses to run things the way I do.
What's the core of the problem you're stuggling to define? I see it in pretty black and white terms: America is too highly centralized in its business, cultural, and economic structures. Use the power of the state to decentralize business and culture, and have this process overseen by the states.
What we're seeing is exactly what the founding fathers knew would happen: over reach of the central government either with overt power (see: TSA) or implicitly by creating an overarching legal structure that benefits highly consolidated exchanges of profit and ideas. The federal government works best when setting minimum standards, and then the states are left to run their own variations and enhancements. Instead, we see more power (and then money) consolidated every election cycle. Political monoculture breeds.....monoculture. A culture of slaves and slave mentalit that ultimately collapses when people realize that nothing they do matters, and then walk away. You only need to look at ancient Native American civilization to see how that works (see: hopewell). Argue if you like, but I'll be doing a doctora thesis on this at some point.
The rich think that by gutting minimum standards and reducing people to poor that the vitality of the nation will increase by creating more 'noble savages', but they're really interested in more power in relative terms, so this line of reasoning fails. GOP, libertarians, they are tools of the ultra elite. In other cases, raising minimum federal standards is used to try to help at all, but the cost falls on the middle class, and this is counterproductive. Dem/liberal fail on this front, especially given their lack of will to enforce their own 'rules'.
So what's a nation to do?
Just what I described: have more states reassert their power and serve as a check to federal power. This has to be done at the state level, and it has to be done with substantial issues. Conservatives need to let go of the gay/abortion debate....they lost, and it's time to grow up and move on. Liberals need to let go of the gun/etc type issues, no one will win. "States rights" arguments have to be run at the STATE level, not the party level. Instead, states should be suing the federal gov't over the federal income tax rates, contending that it deprives states of revenue to the benefit of the White House. States should be challenging the federal gov't on war, taxes, commerce, and they should be doing it in coalitions. Until they do, the increased tyranny of the centralization of our system will continue to suck all the air out of the room and contribute to the rot our civilization is seeing. The solution is not political parties.
But I digress.
As for having a designated "entrepeneur class", I'm not sure I fully understand. Segregate a segment of the population for funding? My impression is that if you reign in 1) unreasonable gov't regulation and 2) entrenched intersts (see: corporate America) plenty of people with ideas and ambition will act more on their own. No one needs to designate an entrepeneurial class, the average person just needs to 1) be freed up and 2) see that they're free to do as they please. On an individual level, people just need to want more and have access to opprotunity. The rest tends to take care of itself.
For me, I just don't like any one person/employer/income having too much control over me, and I DON'T LIKE TO BE TOLD WHAT TO DO, so when I can figure out how to run my own business, I'll drop a nuke on my bridge to employment.
This was a glorious post. I particularly agree with the risk averse mentality of the middle class (I am guilty of this mentality).
This was a glorious post. I particularly agree with the risk averse mentality of the middle class (I am guilty of this mentality).
They're NOT risk averse, they just can't take the outsized risks that wealthy/desperate people do. This is a good thing in many ways: look at how spectacularly Bill Ackman is failing with herbalife and imagine if every $30K /year Joe put all their resources on bad bets? Fact is, you don't need to become a billonaire or try to change the world as an entrepeneur.....for most people making a few more bucks is enough. From my perspective though, the government and entrenched interests have arranged to keep most people "in their place". This is a bad move and, even in my case, almost forces people to break the rules to get ahead.
The root problem is lack of freedom. Resolve that, and everything else falls into place. That's the logic driving America, and is closely aligned with basic psychology.
This should be hard wired into instruction at our education system but, well........look who runds it LOL
Perfect response for @heister . Not a lot of people have the balls to be an entrepreneur. In addition, you're going to get a shitload of failed recent graduates with nothing on their resume besides a failed business if this were the case.
Honestly, unless you're financially set coming out of college, I'd recommend everyone go to the best "brand name" company. It's simple risk management.
I love the idea as long as the prof is not a marxist/leftist. Then it will work. In LACs it's hard to find a good entrepreneurship prof. They all support NGOs and unprofitable student firms.
I'm selling everything I own and leaving the country to trade and live in hotels in a year. It might not work for some reason, but I've decided that I won't live my life in one place and I won't be an employee.
Great post above.
What's wrong with NGOs?
I disagree. We have too many wanna-be entrepreneurs as is (see link below). Truth is, the majority of people have no idea what they want to do outside of "making a difference" and "helping people." Hey bro, I like breathing oxygen, too. As an example, a few days ago, I was talking to a buddy of mine. Super smart guy, good at coding and he's had a number of solid political internships; he could do very well for himself if he continues down that path.
I asked him if he wanted to stay in the field and he said that he's "not sure what he wants to do. I just want to make a difference by finding a niche market and improving it and getting rich from it. I just do politics because it's easy." It's sad that he's deluded himself that being an entrepreneur is the only way to a rich life, because he's super skilled. Now multiply this by 100x, with kids getting patents for each idea they come up with every other second; no one actually follows through with those ideas. The ones that do -- the Steve Jobs, the Bill Gates -- do well, and there has never been a shortage of those types of people (otherwise, society wouldn't have progressed).
Second, not a lot of people are interested in going through the motions of learning basic econ and personal finance; they just want the pretty end result. Well, that end result requires a lot of hard work and strategic thinking, and there's no way you can ram that down people's throats through school. Instead, this should be taught in the home. If your parents refuse to talk about it, get some books at the library. There are tons of wonderful, relevant personal finance books. Teaching people to "budget" for 50k/year at a private university is a waste of credit hours and money, because no one likes budgeting, and thus, no one follows through on it; psychological research backs this up. The same goes for other conventional wisdom -- don't buy lattes, just keep sending out resumes, etc etc. No no no no no. Stop doing pseudo-work that makes you feel productive; it's a false sense of security.
The real strength of entrepreneurship is that it hasn't been made a commodity and centralized; it thrives on unique thought and innovation. Once you try to boil it down to a few core, bite-sized tactics without understanding all the background leg-work (psychological, financial, etc), you will ultimately fail.
Good read: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/09/why-too-many-startu…
What are you talking about?
The one thing I do believe is that every student should give entrepreneurship a shot if they have the free time. If you're working a 40-hour per week (I guess it's more like 50/week for most decent jobs these days) job after you graduate, you definitely have the time.
I wasn't in any way implying that all students should be entrepreneurs, what I was getting at is that we have a group of young people that as a collective have 0 knowledge or even the scarcest idea of how hard it is to run a company, how much stress it causes, and how even basic economies work. If kids actually learned these kinds of things in school they might not all graduate thinking they are the most important people in the world and that progressive political ideology is causing the economy to collapse on itself due to the over bearing unfunded public obligations. I just think an entrepreneur course would be an interesting and involving way to teach kids how the real world works.
I will agree that our educational institutions are sadly deficient
OH MY. Where do I even start with this. I don't have time to be eloquent right now so I'll settle for blunt.
You're looking at the world through some mighty fine rose-tinted lenses. Have you ever actually talked to people who have given it all up to live the co-founder start-up dream? Do you realize how impossible it is for most graduates with significant debt to live on no income while putting in the 100+ work weeks it usually takes to make a startup happen pre-funding? You might be slaving away as an IBD analyst but at least you know you'll be able to pay rent. I know a kid who was delinquent on his loans for a year while living in the corner of a garage working on his idea. Not everyone wants to or can take on that level of risk and misery. It's a totally reasonable and sane choice to not.
Also, deciding to take that on does not make you a holier-than-thou martyr in the name of technology and innovation. It is NOT the thought that counts. Look around you and realize that there is a serious dearth of good ideas and an inane number of large egos. Too many solutions looking for problems.
I have taken approximately a bajillion entrepreneurship classes. They helped me approximately not at all when I actually worked on a startup. It's all connections, luck, common sense and labor. Now if you're saying that we should teach kids some basic understanding of financial planning and business sense, that's a different argument and one I could get behind.
Lastly, how the hell do you think the investors actually make money? Yup. Almost always acquisition. Which means that you, the offbeat special snowflake entrepreneur, is going to be sucked into some large company. Don't think that you're just going to walk off with your 7 figure paycheck. In many cases the company doing the acquiring doesn't just want your IP and potential customer base. They're interested in knowledge transfer and talent, which means you.
ahem. I realize that I wrote this from one very specific slant. Not all startups need funding and there are other things like small businesses and mom and pops which are their own special level of hell.
I have to agree with mehtal re: entrepreneurship classes are pretty much worthless. Maybe for networking?
The classes aren't so much for making entrepreneurs but more like a crash course in how the business world actually works for those who aren't business majors. They have less to do with actually trying to pump out people that are going to start companies and more to do with educating english majors that the world doesn't work like your humanities teacher told you it should.
That's a good point.
And on that topic: schools need to get rid of the entrepreneurship major. Entrepreneurs don't need to learn about being an entrepreneur, they need to try and fail and try again. What they do need in a degree is a back-up. Get a major in finance, accounting, marketing, wtfever. Just something you can actually fall back on in case you fail.
Sadly the Ent major is often a pretty solid option if not for the stigma surrounding the name (at least in my mind, and the minds of many hiring parties I've spoken with). It's essentially a general business degree.
heister, I agree completely. When you're not trolling, you're spot-on.
I've been reassessing everything and realize how futile this whole rat race is. I'm only learning now that success is freedom to do what you want. Let that money come in later.
But I may be a hypocrite because I'm depending on this salary.
Here's a better idea - worry about your own shit and be a good person and it'll all be ok.
This country absolutely worships wealth and holds entrepreneurs up as gods already. Stop complaining about things that don't cause you any real issues.
I thought this was gonna be about LOTR.
I have no memory of this place
lord of the rings because ents lul
You missed it. Its a quote (and now a quite popular meme)
Hah it's a dobule pun :)
Hah it's a double pun :)
How to be/think like an" entrepreneur" is not something you learn in school.
There's a lot of provincial thinking in this thread. Being an entrepreneur doesn't only mean starting a tech startup and trying to become the next Mark Zuckerberg, it means taking any type of risk (time, money, etc) to create a small or large business venture for oneself. You can be a banker and still do freelance business work on the side during the weekend. If you're a consultant and you know how to do graphic design, you can do it on the side as an extra stream of income. If you don't have time during the week, do the work on the weekend. The point is, to think outside of the box instead of depending on one source of income for survival. Unfortunately, the present educational system is geared to produce employees instead of bosses.
I could not agree more
Those three/four things are literally the point of this website. How are people using a website as it is intended curious?
Because you're also lining your own pockets. Because if M&A or S&T or PE or VC or RE is what you want to do, you can't just put your name on a shingle right after graduation and succeed. You don't know what you're doing, you aren't credible to clients, and unless you come from money, you could not come anywhere close to paying the bills. I think it would be useful, but I'm not sure how it would be "hugely beneficial to the economy." Again, why? Do you think people will begin to idealize and worship entrepreneurs as a society or something and change their negative behavior accordingly? Seems to be over-the-top idealism to me.I agree that it is a big problem, however I think the people you are trying to "reach" will pay attention to this required 101 course as much as I paid attention in Sociology 101 or Astronomy 101 or whatever else dumbass liberal studies courses that I had to take to graduate.
Maybe I'm just far too cynical, but I don't see how it would help.
I think the course you are thinking of is principles of economics, a one semester survey course for non business majors.
Entrepreneur worship is highly ridiculous. I would never start a business. The vast majority of businesses fail. Expect to work long hours for little or no pay and very likely have nothing to show for it except a big failure on your resume. Don't be surprised to lose your house, family, friends etc along the way.
I wish American culture would stop encouraging people to do incredibly risky and non profitable things that, on average do not work out. Things like starting a business, getting married, or buying a house. All of these life choices are proven losers and yet are somehow more virtuous than having a good job, staying single, and renting an affordable apartment - three things that will rarely fail to provide a stable and high quality lifestyle.
If you have a good idea that can add value to the society and yourself, and you can take the risk, go do it
otherwise, continue to slave away until you are in a position to do so
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