Humans once opposed coffee and refrigeration: why we often hate new stuff

Re:Humans once opposed coffee and refrigeration: why we ofte... by akiselev on Tuesday July 26, 2016 @05:31AM (#12164385)

An opportunity cost is literally a sacrifice by definition. Bill Gates made a choice to start Microsoft instead of finishing school so there was clearly one opportunity that he rejected and one that he followed. It's not "payment," it's a fact that he chose one path and due to the universal law of causality had to give up one opportunity for another. If Microsoft hadn't succeeded he would have been left empty handed. That's the very definition of risk.

The only delusion in this thread is the idea that Bill Gates took no risk when he decided to drop out of Harvard and start a company with the goal of ushering in the age of personal computing. I'm not comparing him to a starving African child, I'm just pointing out that he took a risk just like every entrepreneur on the planet.

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Re:Humans once opposed coffee and refrigeration: why we ofte... by pbhjpbhj on Tuesday July 26, 2016 @06:57AM (#12164712)

When people say "he's rich, it wasn't a risk for him" they're really saying that the person wasn't risking their well-being. They're not saying that person didn't risk something else, such as employability; but employability is unimportant to someone in that position whilst for another person it's vital.

So yes, technically you're right, but your argument is missing the vital essence of what people mean when they say, eg, "Bill Gates wasnt taking a risk".

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Re:Humans once opposed coffee and refrigeration: why we ofte... by animal531 on Tuesday July 26, 2016 @07:27AM (#12164824)

I stopped working for N months to build an indie game (which eventually didn't go anywhere). That was a risk and had an associated cost (N months of lost salary, expenses, growth etc).

But because of my skills I had no problem getting back into a normal development job afterward.

That means that my risk was a lot less than someone who would lose everything if their plan didn't work out; the same goes for him. His risk was negligible.

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