| If you actually manage to do the work, the only downside is some investors have a story about how single founders can't hack it. It's a prejudice. They've decided things already, a priori, without knowing your particular details. Whether or not a lot of other people can or cannot accomplish something doesn't affect whether or not your or I can or cannot accomplish something. Additionally, the notion that "not being able to talk your friends into starting the company with you" is a "vote of no confidence" is mistaken, for numerous reasons. For example, these days it's hard to find people to work with you at YOUR start-up because so many people are doing start-ups of their own! Furthermore, entrepreneurial spirit is a personality trait, and people have widely differing personalities. Look at all the awesome Linux hackers that write code 100 times more complex than anything most start-ups have to worry about, and yet who work at Red Hat or similar, instead of starting their own company with their fearsome hacking skills. And not all of us have friends that are into this stuff in the first place. It just happened that PG's buddies were into hacking Lisp. Other people's social circles may revolve more around music, or gaming, or any number of other interests a person may have besides programming or start-ups. I know a lot of people in bands; if I didn't program, I'd probably be in one too. Very few people will accept having no life as the price of attempting a start-up. The prospect of staring at a screen all day every day, living with hackers, and eating ramen for months is just not something that has wide appeal. That's not a vote of NO confidence; that's just called being reasonable and wanting a life. I think most people couldn't go through with it even if success were guaranteed. They'd bail partway through. I think that's normal. To actually do it you have to be somewhat insane.
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Agreed