[dnissley]

But so were hundreds/thousands of other people, most of whom did not go on to found companies rivaling Tesla and SpaceX.

[insanitybit]

How many tried? Lots of people don't actually want to do that. I know lots of very wealthy people who are not at all interested in increasing their wealth or running companies or being famous.

[inglor_cz]

The cemetery of defunct space startups is pretty big, including the one founded by John Carmack.

[chess_buster]

He in fact forced the founders of Tesla out of the company to call himself founder.

[dnissley]

You'll see that I noted that in my original comment

[koonsolo]

Just look at the guys coming from paypal and see what they did. More than a few household names.