Risk Everything (2007)(web.archive.org) |
Risk Everything (2007)(web.archive.org) |
This, to me, highlights the flaw in the whole article. They nearly died. They were saved by a chance encounter with a friendly boat. This encounter was SO OBVIOUSLY not a product of their own motivation, boldness or any of the rest of that guff.
This is the worst form of survivor bias.
I guess in daily life it's a useful self-delusion. A mostly harmless belief that gets them through the day while being obviously false: if you're born in the middle class in a developed economy in the modern day, you're likely to be vastly more lucky than, say, 99% of all people who have ever existed so far.
Also, I cannot get myself to imagine that the captain of the ship had a plan to have 40 people drifting in the chance that they find someone else to approach them for restocking, and if that's the kind of captain we want more of I'm out.
Reframed as psychologically risking everything is perhaps a more resonant alternative view. What this means is the notion that “you’re all in”, all of you. That your entire being is at risk. Sports perhaps the easiest illustration, where your entire idea of person is at risk. That’s when the dopamine flies along with the adrenaline. It’s often why you see huge dysfunction in the hyper successful, because the drive is so strong. It’s why an outsized proportion of UK Prime Ministers for example had lost a parent young.
There’s a danger in narrowly framing risking everything. As the material provides far less of a drive than the psychological. It’s also much scarier to put your whole self at risk.
Elon getting as far as away possible (Mars) from his possibly quite mad father, is perhaps a much stronger incentive/drive than making a few more billion.
As to whether it’s desirable, well that’s surely another question altogether.
A all-in attempt to reframe life based on self-awareness and what’s not right/what’s really wanted can be a rewarding experience when it’s properly hedged. I think doing it consistently in small and large ways is a good way to continually develop as a person as middle and old age set in. The world is a big place and I think the point gets missed if the track you’re born into is the track you die in. Attempting these track changes and ideally pulling them off is a great way to understand the power of personal agency and where self-identity comes from.
Hedging the risks of this generally means clear plans for financial stability during the change, and generally accepting and planning for the consequences of the change. It’s hard to <learn to code, move abroad, w/e> when you can’t pay rent.
I think people who wade into attempting this likely fail due to not being able to cover their hedges and an bit of bad luck. Or, they are just born into the wrong zip code and the real-life risks of a change are too much to overcome or they have very narrow paths with tough trade offs (joining the military or w/e).
So, all that said, putting your life orientation and self-identity at risk once in a while and expanding the territory is a good thing I think.
What happens when you lose?
P.S. It's not a risk if you can't lose.
This was a story of depravity, desperation, starvation and the horrible choices one has to make when they feel that the only choices left all lead to likely death.
To draw career or enterpreneurship inspiration from it just seems... wrong...
I'm not sure I fully understand the "learning" part, isn't this a bit of survivor bias, especially the boldness part? Risking all your money in a society with a safety net is different to me than risking your own life on high sea, mainly w/o knowing in what situation you bring yourself. There is a huge group who's story can't be told anymore. However, maybe I'm already too lazy and unwilling to take risks.
What the author is alluding to that, while entrepreneurs like her think they are risking everything while starting a venture, their struggles are lesser compared to the people in the boat and similar others.
That's all I've ever heard as well. Perhaps the amount of pirates/refugees/drug-runners in those waters around Belize has turned that on its head?
42,549 irregular border crossings were reported in July 2022 on the Central Mediterranean route [1]. The number of those who drowned will never be known.
Many of these Africans who dare to cross the sea have already travelled for weeks or months and survived the Sahara. They are not celebrated as risktakers, though. Unlike this article, nobody sings odes to the boldness, inventiveness, motivation, honor and leadership qualities of the African migrant. Maybe they should.
[1] https://frontex.europa.eu/media-centre/news/news-release/eu-...
Those risking everything have no other choice.
If you're reading this person's blog post, if you're on HN... you probably have a choice, and you probably aren't "risking everything". I cannot imagine anyone on here actually choosing to potentially have nothing at all, no network, no funds, no assets, no nothing... and I do not believe the author of the article would either.
I am reminded (again) of this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15659076
> Entrepreneurship is like one of those carnival games where you throw darts or something.
> Middle class kids can afford one throw. Most miss. A few hit the target and get a small prize. A very few hit the center bullseye and get a bigger prize. Rags to riches! The American Dream lives on.
> Rich kids can afford many throws. If they want to, they can try over and over and over again until they hit something and feel good about themselves. Some keep going until they hit the center bullseye, then they give speeches or write blog posts about "meritocracy" and the salutary effects of hard work.
> Poor kids aren't visiting the carnival. They're the ones working it.
Only the privileged get to choose what to risk... and that risk isn't as real as when there was no choice. Those who know that would never choose it.
As for taking risks: I don't think I'd lose single utilon if I never hear another affluent ex-entrepreneur talk about the importance of taking risks. I've been broke before, I've nearly missed rent on several occasions, and none of those times had me working at my baseline competence, let alone at my peak. If those people do better at those circumstances, they must have some quirk that I'm missing.
In practice I perform at my best when I'm emotionally invested but don't really care about the outcome. My two successful businesses were both side gigs I started for fun that scaled well when I noticed that I had greatly underestimated demand. I didn't risk anything for either of those beyond maybe a hundred hours of initial setting up time.
Being a good human is important. Helping someone without being involved in (aside from sustaining them) is noble as well.
Not every problem in this world needs a solution, those seeking will or will not find their solution. If in a position to help them humanitarianly, do so. Don't set expectations or guidance, resolve a need. Unless you have other extraordinary means.
This reads like a dystopian horror novel exploring the extremes of a deranged entrepreneur's mind.
So it doesn't seem like entrepreneurship is all that risky compared to what average students go through.
Many people have more things going on in their lives except their bank account. Family, spouse, children, friends. Losing them is what real loss means to me.
God's own... The land of the free.
I am older now and sooo happy I had the luck to be born in a country where studying is not a debt-trap.
But parts of it really bother me. To equate risking everything for a chance at a decent life with the struggles of foundership is discarding the inherent worth of life. The two are not equivalent things. The former is about basic dignity and human rights and the chance to live a happy life and the latter is about trying to build something.
I don't discount the challenges founders face; on the contrary I have tried it and failed spectacularly; it is not easy and that it requires a set of skills that is hard to learn and harder still to master.
> We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
- from the US Declaration of Independence
I believe strongly in that, and I will say further that I believe that all human beings are created equal, and have inherent rights. Many countries have similar mottos: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life,_Liberty_and_the_pursuit_...
I believe it is a disservice to humanity to compare foundership and basic human rights and dignity.
> Luck On a day when it really counted, they had some of it. But it dawns on me that luck is just the product of all these other qualities.
Really struggling with this quote. It is in my opinion a serious mistake to believe that luck is not a factor. I have been extremely lucky; I was born in a democratic country and I had easy access to health care and education, and by god I had access to a computer at a young age. These accidents of birth are nothing more or less than luck, and they made a tremendous difference in my life and had a significant positive impact on my life. Even in my own city, people are suffering in poverty, have a lack of access to medical care, etc. These people simply don't have the good luck that I have had.
As other commenters like buro9 have mentioned,
> Those risking everything have no other choice.
Sure the journey is difficult and you might die, but this isn’t worse than the alternative of starvation or enslavement in the place from which you flee.
The boat migrant is risking everything. But it’s a calculated risk and he doesn’t have much to lose anyway.
Risk Everything - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40192 - Aug 2007 (2 comments)
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
"Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!"
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!These guys have everything to win and nothing to lose. They are not taking any risks.
“Do you know the only value life has is what life puts upon itself? And it is of course over-estimated since it is of necessity prejudiced in its own favour. Take that man I had aloft. He held on as if he were a precious thing, a treasure beyond diamonds or rubies. To you? No. To me? Not at all. To himself? Yes. But I do not accept his estimate. He sadly overrates himself. There is plenty more life demanding to be born. Had he fallen and dripped his brains upon the deck like honey from the comb, there would have been no loss to the world. He was worth nothing to the world. The supply is too large. To himself only was he of value, and to show how fictitious even this value was, being dead he is unconscious that he has lost himself. He alone rated himself beyond diamonds and rubies. Diamonds and rubies are gone, spread out on the deck to be washed away by a bucket of sea-water, and he does not even know that the diamonds and rubies are gone. He does not lose anything, for with the loss of himself he loses the knowledge of loss. Don’t you see? And what have you to say?”
> When I share this story with other sailors, they are universally aghast that we helped these refugees.
I wonder what kind of sailors they are conversing with, if at all.
Here is the idea: you go in a casino with $1000, that's your self-imposed limit, you will not die if you lose it, but it means you will stop playing, and you will have no way to recover from your losses, time to go home. That's what ruin is.
And this is something you have to take into account. For example, imagine you find a game where you have 50% chance of losing your bet, and 50% of winning your bet +2%. You can bet up to $1000. In theory, you get the best expectancy ($10) if you play $1000, but since it is your limit, you actually have a 50% chance of losing it all with no other chance to play this profitable game again, the result is you can expect to leave the casino poorer. If instead, you start with smaller bets, slowly ramping up as you play, you will be able to take full advantage of the game indefinitely, and almost certainly end up richer.
Note that in a real casino, games have a house edge, so from a pure money perspective, ruin is not a bad thing because it prevents you from playing more negative expectancy games, and it will happen eventually. But since if like me, you just go there to have fun and consider the house edge to be the price of entertainment, then lowering the risk of ruin is actually the main goal.
It's true death has utility in an economic sense, as one needs not look further than the funeral/death care industry to find utility. But if we are talking about death of the self, the negative infinite utility claim seems more convincing than the non-negative-infinite one. In fact, negative infinite utility might be a near-perfect synonym for death.
And at the risk of sounding overly nihilistic, it may well overpower the benefit of everything/anything, again if we are specifically talking about the self.
Bringing down risk taking to a simple “risk it all” is a trivia that is maybe inspiring but naive.
What’s worse, those kinds of strategies are appealing to people mostly because of survivorship bias: one hears inspiring stories from those who risked it all and made it to the top but rarely from those who loosed it all (those don’t sell too well).
It's a bit odd that choice of traits to ascribe to economic migrants, which could be better describe the African entrepreneurs who chose to stay and improve their home community.
But in reality, both are bold, inventive and motivated. The difference is just the capital - financial, social and educational - each one holds, those who have nothing are simply willing to accept riskier propositions.
Don't for a moment think you you can bootstrap a business in a corrupt African state using nothing but your hands and back, with no education, no connections and no money. Even if you are insanely productive and entrepreneurial, without greasing the right hands you will be picked clean by criminal rings, protection rackets, unscrupulous competitors etc. It's hard for a westerner to relate to a life where rule of law is spotty and tends to cover only major crimes.
No, they shouldn't. Smuggling migrants into Europe is a business these days. The professional smugglers get paid and can provide transportation at every step of the journey. The most cynical step in this process is creating deliberate distress at sea in order to be picked up by people with "white saviour" mentality who knew in advance in which area the distress would happen and then transport those people from the Libyan coast all the way to Italy or Spain to drop them off there and now make the migrants Europe's problem[1].
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/far-right-italian-leade...
The "Risk Everything" story glorifies a young Cuban boat refugee's leadership qualities. I certainly can't remember ever reading an article like that about an African refugee written by an European. It's somehow easier for us to see the best of humanity in someone from Cuba than in someone from Niger, even when they both suffered under dictatorship and took extraordinary steps to escape.
This isn't the way the advice was framed, and I think you are right that it should be -- but the reframed advice can still be good -- I don't know about for startups, I think most startups are BS, and the comparison of someone "risking everything" to survive (a refugee) to an entrepeneur is frankly kind of offensive....
But for life anyway. Take a sober look at what you will really be losing if you lose. Is it in fact mostly about your self-image, and not about your material safety? Is it more inconvenience (even supreme inconvenience) than existential threat? Then take the risk for something you really want, for sure.
Those who actually risk everything, like, their lives (say, refugees in boats) do so because the alternative is existentially intolerable. The comparison to entrepeneurs is just... not actually ok. The better advice for those not facing existential threats to their humanity is probably more like... you aren't actually risking everything, you are nothing like these people, you'll be ok either way, so go for it. Which is actually pretty different than OP, yeah...
This is a great summary of the problems with this analogy, thank you. It's always annoyed me when people excuse the bad behavior of landlords and bosses exploiting low-income people with "well, they took a huge financial risk buying that building or starting that business!" Sure they did, but it was a risk to their ability to buy fancy organic steaks, not to their ability to continue breathing oxygen - and if it an unprofitable business investment _was_ going to put them on the street, then they should just go get a job like everyone else. The risks taken by landlord and tenant, by boss and laborer, are not comparable.
True but I assume the author understands that difference , maybe he is riding a different wave just that both are looking at endless fall to the abyss.
Google "The fourfold pattern". Basically, he states that there's a cognitive bias where people in situations where a poor outcome is likely to happen, tend to risk too much, and not settle for a bad (but better) outcome that what they already have.
If they kept compounding these "bad but better choices", they might have a chance.
I wish this book were more popular.
"poor kids" or people that don't have a ton of surplus savings can visit the casino, they just aren't playing the high stakes tables, they are playing penny slots.
Speaking for myself, I'm kinda priviledged in working in the carnival, it's a good and steady income and I'm accumulating wealth, meaning I'm in a more economically privileged position than my parents and their parents were (housing crisis / cost of living aside, of course, sigh). That can, down the line, if I feel like it, be used as a springboard to do a throw.
People have been screaming about a housing crisis for many years now, yet the percentage of owner occupied households is higher than it was compared to all of 1970-1990.
*self funded
Once you have decent funding, the wealth of your parents shouldn’t impact you very much.
1) Your safety net. If you lose, will they help you out so you at least aren't totally destitute?
2) Your social/professional network, and (correlationally) your access/ability to develop one, or funders and other technical assistance.
If you accept the official poverty line as threshold, that'd be ~13% of people in the US. And the poverty line is ~$14k/year - even if you make double that, the amount of money you can risk is really pretty close to zero.
Any risk in that situation is a super-risky plan with no room for error.
Apparently not that strong of an urge ;-).
For those (like me) who didn't know it yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_criterion
"Suck it up" as the ultimate in life advice to those born less lucky lacks a certain something to the more empathetic folks out there.
While US is not universally like that, there is probably a large proportion that is (citation missing).
A lot can go wrong on a boat, and sailors - especially, small family crews can be forgiven for putting their safety ahead of a boat full of men that can outnumber and overpower them.
So yeah, you might want to check your bias. This isn't something that just happens in the US, it's a worldwide thing. Refugees are mistreated in Africa, in Asia - everywhere.
> The prevailing wisdom for this seafaring situation is “Don’t Stop.”
The law is to render assistance. That law was based on prevailing wisdom.
Apparently the author moves in different circles to the rest of seafaring folk.
Additionally it is also the law and international convention.
https://www.bullivant.com/rescue-at-sea/
“Every master is bound, so far as he can do so without serious danger to his vessel and persons thereon, to render assistance to any person in danger of being lost at sea.”
I would argue that two blokes on a sailboat doing fun rides in the Caribbean are hardly sailors. I guess when they talked to other 'sailors' who were 'agast', it was the Jonas Grumby/Gilligan type.
When I was young in my mid 20's, I've just moved to a hip and hipster neighborhood of a college town lively with grad students, artists and musicians and comics; But I was just a lonely and geeky guy lookin' to fit in and meet and make new friends with the glitsy scene.
One one evening, driving back from staying late on the job, I stopped for a fellow who motioned for help in the middle of the road. It turned out that his car battery died - but peculiarly his battery would not hold charge and his engine would only run if the jumper cable hooked up at all times. So really wanting to help, I offered to get into both of our cars with the jumper cables still connected - like 2 hungry hippos joined at the open mouths and drive down gingerly down 5 city blocks 'till we got to his driveway. Someway, somehow, against many honks and even incoming traffic, we made it. I was elated and thought I had made a friend and had a great story to tell; we exchanged phone numbers, and I asked the guy to have drinks with me some times.
Except the guy never replied back to my messages. And while disappointing, it wasn't a big deal in the grander scale of things in life vis-a-vis major breakup's, "major reorgs" at work or major rifts with family relatives. But with passage of time, I've learned why it still nagged at me - because if I was honest with myself: what I did was actually not very altruistic. I stopped because I was a lonely young man who was looking for some kind of excitement to take on a "hero" role even if only for a moment. A situation I was hoping would garner me some dopamine hit with truly minimal cost to me - and yes even an covert expectation that the stranger would return my " kindness" and maybe even a social reward if I re-told the story [chasing an aesthetic pleasure disguised as an ethical act in the Kierkegaardian sense].
So I don't think I'd be keen to stop for someone now - not because I've become a grumpy old man who don't believe most people are bad and you shouldn't take un-necessary personal risk. But because (a) I think real heroism is deliberately pushing all your chips [at true emotional or material sacrifice to yourself] to the middle of the table for something or people whom you love over a long sustained period of time - not some impulsive act in the moment for an emotional reward, and (b) I think those people stranded on the road should have purchased an AAA membership; or should have carried an radio for emergency contact, brought on additional provisions or a marine GPS for their course on the high seas.
A used long-range radio could be cheaper, but not that much.
Both could easily be a year's earnings.
Satellite Phone was in the $10000s.
People take out mortgages, credit card loans, loan money from friends, family, colleagues. Are intentionally opaque about their financial situation.
Then if things go bust, and people want their money back, they're stuck alone with the mess.
At its core, it's due to breach of trust.
Losing your apartment isn't really an absorbing state if you can still take a salaried job, re-accumulate, and then continue to make further bets.
But yeah, I agree with you. They are risking the challenges of having as hard a life as... their tenants or workers already have! At worst! (Then the risks of a refugee on a boat are another category yet again).
Here's one: https://replicationindex.com/2020/12/30/a-meta-scientific-pe..., discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28917017
But they are also very fearful of others at the same time. The article talks of refugees encountering 5 other boats which wouldn't help them before the author did.
My (completely unsubstantiated, iow, my gut feel) claim is that they are a bit more fearful of other people being out to get them than people from most European countries. Think of it like 35% of Europeans would help vs 25% of Americans (again, numbers completely fabricated, or pulled out of my behind): a small percentage points difference, but a huge relative difference.
You will not have the same opportunities. Look closely at the ones you have and don't ignore them for sour grapes.
Anything more than "sucks to be you" requires opportunity or real costs and basically no one is willing to do.
Heck even the cases of tutorship are reserved for the lucky talented ones.
I hope this clarifies your misunderstanding
If someone had enough money, time, etc. but not enough prestige, how would it manifest itself?
To really risk everything I have to burn bridges, damage my brain, and lose all my money.
In the end, you always have yourself. Except when you die. And then it doesn't matter.
Interestingly, though, I've always stopped for people on the side of the road to render aid and had many fun stories come from it but I almost never do when I have women in the car. I'm not entirely sure why but I don't.
The only exception was years ago on the Road to Hana where it was after dark on the South East side of the island and we came upon a family with a busted tyre. But I think on the mainland, probably not.
So maybe there's more to loss than oneself. I think I'd eat total death myself over harm to those I am responsible for.
You always have yourself but consider also how much impact in psyche it might have, will you really have "yourself" after blowing all the savings? It could trigger regret (especially if some opportunity shows up after savings are gone) and could spiral down into depression. It is easy to say "I am strong, I would handle it" before something bad happens.
I think the opportunity cost thing is a meaningful thing, but I doubt it'll really hurt since I have significant amounts of money I can draw on through my network.
Sounds like a great way to lose money.
Poker is a great game to learn to understand EV/variance.
When crossing the street, there's a tiny risk of death, but a fairly good chance of a somewhat desirable outcome (getting to the other side.) If you considered your death to have negative infinity utility, and the desirable outcome to have finite positive utility, then you would opt to not cross the street ever, because negative infinity times small probability plus positive finite number times large probability is still negative infinity in total.
Essentially, any time you're weighing up your options, and one of the outcomes has negative infinity utility with non-zero probability, then the outcome of that course of action also has negative infinity utility, the way these terms are usually defined.
Thus, given the behaviour of most people, they do not think of their death has having negative infinity utility.
Weighing probabilities is one thing, and assumes humans are capable of rationally weighing these outcomes (which isn't clear) but even then which part of our scientific understanding of death precludes death having negative infinite utility?
Still, this doesn't disprove death as negative infinite utility, as the risk of death also exists from _not_ crossing the street; one isn't preventing the risk of death by refusing to cross the street. In fact, staying permanently in one place, never crossing the street, and doing nothing indefinitely out of a fear of death, would simply guarantee one's death.
>and the desirable outcome to have finite positive utility
Extend the timescale and the desirable outcome leads to the same outcome as the "undesirable" one.
The "West" is possibly on the verge of some large rule changes.
I rather suspect it is significantly negative, because most new businesses fail and the venture capital system means gambling with someone else's money.