Sri, Thinking about our shared heritage here as children of migrants in Australia - risk taking was frowned upon because our parents only knew one way of making money, become a doctor, engineer or economist and work for The Man (TM); work really hard, go up the ranks and make the $$$.
This might be controversial, but some of our risk adversity is partly ingrained & cultural - because our parents told us not to do things which were out of the norm. Taking risks in Australia unless you have a heritage like the Packers, is a big no-no. Contrast this to some other countries where people are attuned to a high performance culture - you work hard, get paid for it & succeed. No poppies tall enough! When I suggested to my parents that I'd like to take a year off and work on my own tech startup, their exact reaction was along these lines: <indian accent> What?! You want to start your own company? But how are you going to make money??? Why don't you do your MBA instead? </indian accent> I can't even begin to explain!!!! *pulls hair out* Imagine undoing that sort of thinking at an early stage!!! - Casey has an excellent point - start in high school - we got taught some of the basic stuff anyway (business studies, commerce, economics) and build on it by introducing the concept of failure. Just like we got taught how to use condoms in grade 9 (which for me, was completely useless knowledge until I got to uni) we should teach kids about the concept of risk taking, startups and all the bigger picture stuff to get them excited. We could even encourage high school kids to start companies - teach them to take the risks (OK, perhaps not the sex, booze, drugs & rock'n'roll type though :P). Case in point - a lot of the original web development shops around Australia were started by kids in high school in the '00s, and there are 16 year olds who are doing security vulnerability research for major corporations. The energy & bright sparks are there, its just that no-one has plugged in to the power socket so to speak. And no exams... those are old school. Sriram Panyam wrote: > Casey, > > It is funny mention that. I was kind of the exact opposite. I > wanted to be an entrepreneur since I was 12 years old. I just didnt > know that that was it was! I knew I wanted to make things that people > wanted and sell it to them and it had to be something technological > (actually software related more specifically). As I grew, I kind of got > more "groomed" into not pursuing it, until a few years ago. Even though > geekiness wasnt frowned upon, risk taking was somehow seen as a major > no-no. > > So back to the wantrepreneurship board then! > > cheers > Sri -- Shaon Diwakar Twitter: @shaond --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Silicon Beach Australia mailing list. Guidelines on discussion: http://tr.im/ujKF No lurkers! It is expected that you introduce yourself: http://tr.im/ujMm To post to this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to silicon-beach-australia+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/silicon-beach-australia?hl=en?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
