A2 · Elementary
6 min
entrepreneurshiptechnologyeconomicsculture
Nine Out of Ten
Noventa por ciento fracasan
A startup is not just a small company: it is a bet, a dream, and nine times out of ten, a failure. Fletcher and Octavio dig into what a startup actually is, where the idea came from, and why it has permanently reshaped the world of work.
Una startup no es solo una empresa pequeña: es una apuesta, un sueño y, nueve de cada diez veces, un fracaso. Fletcher y Octavio exploran qué es realmente una startup, de dónde viene esta idea y por qué ha cambiado el mundo del trabajo para siempre.
5 essential A2-level terms from this episode, with translations and example sentences in Spanish.
| Spanish | English | Example |
|---|---|---|
| fracasar | to fail completely, to collapse entirely | Muchas startups fracasan en diez años. |
| crecer | to grow | Una startup tiene que crecer muy rápido. |
| la empresa | the company | La empresa tiene muchos usuarios nuevos. |
| el inversor | the investor | El inversor paga ahora y recibe dinero después. |
| el usuario | the user | Primero necesitas muchos usuarios. El dinero llega después. |
My son-in-law used a word at Christmas dinner that I've been chewing on ever since.
He works for a startup in Madrid.
I nodded like I understood it, went home, and realized I couldn't actually define what I'd nodded at.
Una startup no es una empresa normal.
A startup is not a normal company.
That's where I need you to slow down, because from the outside it looks exactly like a company.
People, laptops, someone selling something to someone else.
What is actually different?
Una startup crece muy rápido.
A startup grows very fast.
Eso es lo importante.
That is what matters.
Growth.
Not profit.
Not paying your employees.
Growth.
That's a genuinely strange idea if you stop and sit with it.
Sí.
Yes.
El dinero llega después.
The money comes later.
Primero, muchos usuarios.
First, many users.
Every business model I absorbed growing up was: make something, someone pays for it, you cover costs, you survive.
Startups completely inverted that logic.
The money is almost beside the point, at least in the beginning.
Los inversores pagan ahora.
Investors pay now.
La empresa paga después.
The company pays later.
And 'later' has sometimes meant never, which takes us straight to the 1990s.
Because the dot-com boom is the original startup story, and it does not end cleanly.
En los años noventa, muchas empresas de internet no tienen dinero.
In the nineties, many internet companies have no money.
Pero todos quieren invertir.
But everyone wants to invest.
I was in Jakarta when the crash happened in 2000.
I got calls from friends back home who had put their savings into companies with '.com' in the name and no actual product.
The idea had become worth more than the thing.
Muchas startups fracasan.
Many startups fail.
Eso es normal.
That is normal.
How normal?
Because 'many' is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.
Noventa por ciento fracasan en diez años.
Ninety percent fail within ten years.
Nine out of ten.
And people keep starting them.
There is something almost romantic about that, or completely delusional, depending on your mood.
El sueño es muy importante.
The dream is very important.
Steve Jobs es un ejemplo famoso.
Steve Jobs is a famous example.
And with Jobs, you get the garage myth.
Apple started in a garage in Los Altos, California.
Google started in a garage.
Hewlett-Packard started in a garage.
At a certain point, the Silicon Valley garage becomes almost sacred.
They should charge admission.
En España también hay startups.
In Spain there are also startups.
Barcelona es muy importante ahora.
Barcelona is very important now.
Walk me through that, because I genuinely don't know the origin story of the Spanish tech scene.
How did Barcelona get there?
Después de la crisis de 2008, muchos jóvenes no tienen trabajo.
After the 2008 crisis, many young people have no work.
Entonces crean empresas.
So they create companies.
Necessity as the mother of invention.
That is a much darker origin story than the garage mythology, but it might be the more honest one.
The American version is opportunity;
the Spanish version is survival.
Sí.
Yes.
Ahora hay startups muy buenas en Madrid y en Barcelona.
Now there are very good startups in Madrid and in Barcelona.
What about the cultural collision, though?
Silicon Valley has a very specific work culture: sleep at the office, eat there, give the company everything.
Does that actually translate to Spain?
Because from what I observe at family dinners, the Spanish relationship with work hours is somewhat different.
Los españoles trabajan mucho.
Spaniards work a lot.
Pero la familia también es importante.
But family is also important.
And lunch.
Let's not forget lunch.
Fletcher, en España el trabajo no es toda la vida.
Fletcher, in Spain work is not your whole life.
I'm not criticizing it.
Twenty-five years of watching countries taught me that the societies which dissolve the boundary between work and everything else don't necessarily produce better outcomes.
They produce more exhausted people.
Exacto.
Exactly.
Dormir en la oficina no es una buena idea.
Sleeping at the office is not a good idea.
But here is where the conversation gets genuinely complicated.
The startup model is built on disruption.
Uber disrupts taxis.
Airbnb disrupts hotels.
That word, disruption, sounds exciting and clean until you are the taxi driver.
En España, los taxistas protestan contra Uber.
In Spain, taxi drivers protest against Uber.
Es un problema muy grande.
It is a very big problem.
I covered some of those protests.
And the thing that struck me was that both sides genuinely believed they were fighting for something legitimate.
The drivers were protecting their livelihoods.
The startups were fighting against a monopoly.
Both were partially right, and that's what made it so hard.
La tecnología cambia el trabajo.
Technology changes work.
Esto es difícil para muchas personas.
This is difficult for many people.
Always has been.
The loom disrupted hand-weavers.
The printing press disrupted scribes.
What's different now is the speed.
A technology can go from zero to global in five years and eliminate an entire profession before the regulatory framework has even woken up.
Las startups cambian el mundo.
Startups change the world.
A veces para bien, a veces no.
Sometimes for the better, sometimes not.
That might be the most honest summary of the whole thing.
More honest than the garage myth, anyway.
By the way, can I circle back to something?
You keep using the word 'fracasan.' I've been hearing it through the whole conversation and I want to make sure I understand it correctly.
Fracasar es más serio que fallar.
To fracasar is more serious than to fallar.
Es un fracaso total.
It is a total failure.
So 'fallar' is like tripping on a step, but 'fracasar' is the whole staircase coming down?
Sí, muy bien.
Yes, very good.
Una persona falla un examen.
A person fails an exam.
Una empresa fracasa.
A company fails completely.
English flattens that distinction entirely.
We use 'fail' for burning toast and for going bankrupt and for everything in between.
Spanish keeps them separate, and I think that's actually more precise.
En español, las palabras son precisas.
In Spanish, words are precise.
A veces más que en inglés.
Sometimes more than in English.
Not going to argue that point today.
Nine out of ten startups fracasan.
And somehow that word captures it better than anything I have in my own language.