zlacker

The Canadian Dream is to get a great education and then move of the US.

You might want to blame the government or this or that but I think as a Canadian I've finally come to reckon with the fact that it's just not in the Canadian ethos to do risky things like make startups. Of course there are exceptions to the rule but they are very very rare. Canadian investors don't want to take big risks and the Americans are just next door waiting to gobble up the talent in search of capital.

>>typon+(OP)
For folks without responsibilities like kids, aging parents, etc. I really don’t think startups are very “risky”.

What’s the worst that happens? It doesn’t work out and after five years you go get a job in boring corp corp with an incredible skillset and vast life experience.

You’ve sacrificed some income perhaps, but so what? People make choices like that all the time. Your working career could easily be 40 or 45 years, 5 is not that much and it’s not like you went bankrupt. Your skillset might even mean you more than make up for lost time.

I don’t understand the talk of “risk” unless you’re Elon Musk betting the farm on your businesses and facing bankruptcy.

Work in your spare time until you have something Angel worthy, then get a modest salary to get to the next level and on you go. Or just bootstrap.

Is it easy? No, it’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do. Is it risky? Not so much.

So why do Canadians and Brits see it as a risky thing to do? I think they don’t. What they see is _uncertainty_ - where will I be in six months? What if it doesn’t work out? What if I fail and people judge me? They don’t like uncertainty. That is conservative with a small c. Probably it’s a cultural artefact rather than anything remotely rational. The problem is you end up in an equilibrium where the society is conservative (“what you wanna do wasting your time with that”) so the ambitious people just leave and go to somewhere like (parts of) the US where people want to change things, make things, improve the world. And the conservative society gets more conservative until it is ossified.

Startups carry high uncertainty but not high risk.

>>eggdaf+h1
This depends on what you see as risk. If I can safely earn for 5 years way above national average and build a strong savings egg that can provide income forever.

Or I can fail at a startup and be close to zero five years later, the fact that you aren't homeless and starving and can get another job doesn't mean it wasn't risky, you still wasted a bunch of years compared to slow and steady accumulation.

I've read the majority of millionaires in the US get created like this, working and saving through decades.

You're basically repeating investor kool-aid, because for their model to work, 100 people will fail and 1 succeed, and so they tell you to not worry if you're in the 99.

>>eggdaf+h1
Turns out there’s only enough people with this mindset to fill a couple hubs around the world. The rest prefers less volatility and happily takes on less downside risk for capped reward and/or less upside risk.

>>eggdaf+h1
The increased cost of living in the last few years has changed this somewhat. That 5 years of lower earnings now means less nice groceries, fewer holidays and being under the yoke of landlords for considerably longer.

>>vasco+E2
Of course you could probably say at least some of the same things about grad degrees that may not really translate into appreciable different/better career outcomes. Of course some say exactly that, especially about PhDs.

>>eggdaf+h1
There are countries where the business culture makes you unemployable and almost impossible for you to get a loan for the rest of your live if you have ever failed a business (bad enough). Many countries aren't as open to failure as the US.

>>eggdaf+h1
I can't speak for Canada and I may be a wrong, but it seems to me harder to loan money for business than in NA. Banks are the ones that don't want to take risks, not necessarily the people with ideas.

Also failures aren't considered the same in every job market.

>>StrauX+S4
This is a fair point. I was talking in the context of USA UK Canada but it might not generalise.

>>vasco+E2
“Wasting years” is not a risk. It’s a choice. And as I pointed out it’s likely not wasted anyway.

>>ghaff+M3
I don’t think there are risky either.

For me risk is “could go horribly wrong” but the worst case for most startup founders is … get a job?

>>eggdaf+IJ1
Wasting from a savings perspective, come on now.

>>vasco+Xl2
Hmm, no I think people don't get what I'm saying.

Yes, you might waste five years (in your words) of income. But that is not a "risk".

A "risk" for me is "this could all go badly wrong". Not having an extra five years of savings is just a fairly straightforward consequence. It's predictably going to happen, I can decide if I want it.

Real risk is "something can go catastrophically wrong". If say you've taken out a huge bank loan to fund the business and you have to declare bankruptcy if it fails, now _that_ is a risk. But nearly every founder I've ever met has taken nothing like that risk.

That's my point, startups are not risky in that sense, for most people, most of the time. It's kinda strange that so many people think they are.