[jlangemeier]

I think that's more the product of VC culture; as a founder you're in a constant case of "selling your company" which in most cases is also selling yourself to people, i.e. investing in a startup is tantamount to investing in the person in the early stages. I haven't seen this mentality nearly as much in folks that are bootstrapping without the "extreme growth" required by VCs.

And, although PG is in the Silicon Valley bubble (where only cool things happen, and it's the hub of cool in tech, duh), the advice he has is fairly general. In the board game creator community there's a lot of advice on making things that fail and making things that don't sell "for the fun of making the thing," because let's face it... most of your shit doesn't sell and never has any market value, but that doesn't make it any less useful or instructive.

TL;DR: Being okay with "failure" is a major part of any profession or hobby, and isn't intrinsic to Silicon Valley or VC backed startups...