Startups here and there
David Welgon has a nice post regarding his opinions on pros and cons on running a startup in Europe (Italy) and the USA (SF/Bay area). The first of the Italy cons got my attention:
Less of a startup culture and mentality. It's more typical to get a "job for life" and hang on to it for all you're worth. Many Italians are tremendously creative, industrious, inventive people, but are going to find it more difficult to express that in some form of business.
I know I am unlike many people, specially in this field… But anyway. I live in Mexico. Many factors in The Way Things Work are pushing people towards having an enterpeneur mentality - And what you see as a point against, I see as a very big advantage.
Some people have what it takes to run a business, and that’s great. However, I think it is wrong to assume most people will benefit from running their own business - And specially in a country as mine. I cannot speak much about Europe, but from what you say, it confirms it is a good model of what I’d like Mexico to morph into.
Too many people start their companies with dreams of glory, thinking they have something to differentiate from the rest of the marketplace - and they lack it. So instead of enriching an existing company with more, and better focused, technical talent, they will end up making it poorer with yet another generic company with nothing new to offer, paying famelic wages to their employees, finding a way to skip the social security payments. And there are lots of legal ways to do so in Mexico - and a growing segment of the population has neither health care nor retirement savings, as this makes their day-to-day incomes substantially more juicy… But the future will bite them hard. Well, not only them - It will bite all of us. I still think we will inevitably, sooner or later, evolve into a more caring society, a society where the strong protects the weak, where it (via the State, the government) ensures nobody has under the minimum needed to have a decent life.
And, although I am essentialy a Socialist at heart, I do recognize there is place for people getting more money than others - After all, courage and creativity should be encouraged, and true enterpeneurs should get compensed for what they give to the society - But the ridiculous, stupid differences we get to see, specially in third world countries (remember that the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim, lives on the same city I do, and around ~15 years ago even lived less than five blocks away from me… But I do have close family where having food daily on the table is far from a fact) are something that should disappear for good.
Loyalty to your employer and long-term job commitment are two values I hold very dear, and hope to be able to practice. So far, I have worked for eight years for UNAM (1999-2003 and 2005-present), and I hope to continue here for many years to come. I was just talking about this with a friend - The payment itself is far less than what I could get somewhere else, but the work conditions and long-term viability are more than enough to repay for the difference. And I am sure many of my friends and acquintances would be much better off if they stopped prioritizing getting more money now in respect to leading a better, richer life - And, of course, if we all valued more giving back to the society, as we will probably all need to ask from it sooner or later.
Comments
Anonymous 2008-12-16 17:32:13
lo bueno de la estabilidad
lo bueno de la estabilidad es que quita una importante preocupacion en la vida, y esa energia se puede usar para las cosas que a uno mas le importan. lo malo de la estabilidad es que con ella llega el terror a perderla, y por eso se dejan de hacer muchas cosas que a uno le importan.
San Francisco lawyer 2009-01-09 16:23:00
Loyalty to your employer and
Loyalty to your employer and long-term job commitment are two values I hold very dear, and hope to be able to practice.
Not sure how things work in Meixco, but long-term job commitment is becoming a thing of the past in the States, simply because long-term employee commitment seems to be going extinct as well. Employees, in response to feeling disposable by employers, are seeking greener pastures. I don’t know if we’ll ever return to the days of long term commitment between employee and employer.