[nostrademons]

That's not the bargain you get with a startup, though. The bargain is that you bear the risk of the startup failing in the market and you getting zero, in exchange for all of the upside if it succeeds. With that bargain, it's rational to focus entirely on money, because you get all of it and you get none of it if there is none.

The bargain you're describing is a side project:

> And if you have no real business and just want to work on your own stuff and maybe make money later then that’s just a side project.

And you actually can take that bargain, if you have suitable qualifications - it's like being employed by a research lab of a big company, or an internal tech incubator, or an EIR position, or just being friendly enough with a VC that they give you seed capital to work on whatever you want. And yes, > 50% of big company employees, if offered that deal, would probably take it.

The reason why they're not taking it is because there're barriers to entry put up in front of it - a Ph.D in a hot field for research lab positions, previous corporate success for internal incubators, previous startup success for EIRs, and personal connections or pedigree for no-strings-attached seed funding. And the reason why you have those barriers to entry is that this deal is not economically rational for the person fronting the money unless there's a decent chance that the person they're sponsoring will come up with something valuable during the time period in question.

[perennate]

I think you're missing the point, of course the bargain doesn't reflect reality -- but many people choosing the startup over the other job given this bargain thought experiment where all else is equal implies that there is motivation other than money, i.e., freedom of direction, ownership, etc.