I think the famous line from the Joker really describe startup founders who survive long enough to get a viable startup... "Whatever doesn't kill us only makes us stranger."
Indeed. This was the first article I read this morning and it woke me up.
A cultural aspect of the US not common in many nations is emphasized here - 'leniency to failed businesses and the people that ran them'. In the US there is very little stigma associated with individuals who ran a business unsuccessfully. In my experience that has not been true in parts of Africa and Asia.
The model even exists on social fronts. For example, divorce (unsuccessful marriage) carries a stigma in many Asian countries.
I think the US culture lets you breathe and live without making too many judgments about your life.
I believe this was true in India for a long time too. I used to work in financial services and we outsourced a lot of work to groups in India. While I worked for this company, we would bring the brightest and best across the pond to work with us in the corporate hq. I was told multiple stories about how people returning from companies that had shrunk, and consequently laid off employees, would face social stigmas and even have trouble finding new work. "laid off" == "fired and thus not good" to cultures that were unfamiliar with the risk taking nature of US business.
This reminds me of the recent story about the Korean woman who passed the driver's examination on the 960th try: "Knocked down four times, rising up five."
It wouldn't be that bad until i read in their other post this:
"It is exciting times right now in Russia. After long history of existing on resource-driven oil & gas economy, the country is making strides to leapfrog its way into high technology powerhouse. The press is abuzz with talks on technology parks and fostering a start-up culture.
...
Like everybody else, we got excited hearing the recent news from Russia."
lol - believe me the startup-russia team is not doing any PR :)! I know them very well. They want to motivate the Russian innovation scene and create a valuable knowledge transfer.
man, i guess you aren't Russian yourself. So, just believe me, no sane Russian brain is able to produce the real intention to "motivate the Russian innovation scene and create a valuable knowledge transfer". Such phrase is hardly translatable into Russian language and isn't mappable into the ontology of the Russian mentality.
My biggest problem with the article is that it seems to think a startup is only successful if it hits a huge, exploding market, like Microsoft/Facebook did. On the contrary, plenty of successful startups have been formed on markets which didn't explode and get huge overnight, but were plenty big enough to sustain more players.
The use of articles is the biggest mystery of English language. No native speaker can concisely explain where to put them and where not. Apparently the rule is that it just has to "sound right".
I think that's true of most rules. Almost no native speakers can come close to explaining anything, but experts in language studies generally have very specific rules.
And by the way, articles are not the biggest mystery imo. Coming from a country that speaks Hebrew, which is a language that doesn't have the very "to be", explaining what that verb does is much harder. In Spanish things get even funner, since there are two version of the verb "to be", and which one is used depends on the next verb and has to be memorized.
And don't get me started on tenses. In Hebrew, there is no such thing as "I went" vs "I have gone" vs "I have been going" vs "I am going", etc.
