[garethsprice]

Perhaps the question should be why do people who could be billing their time to enterprises for $100+/hr or on 6-figure salaries spend years of their life trying to build a startup that has a very small chance of becoming profitable. Consulting or even full-time employment is debatably a more economically rational choice.

Thankfully, people are not rational economic actors so there's a healthy ecosystem where talented hackers are basically free to work on whatever they like. Here's to the freedom of being able to do what we love, whatever that may be.

I personally like consulting work as it's very low overhead, get to meet lots of smart/interesting clients, high cashflow, exposure to lots of exciting new projects. I even enjoy the hustling and pitching part of the business. I'd like to build a successful product one day (as most consultants do) but it's hard to find an idea I care about enough to dedicate years of my life to, especially when I have a steady stream of consulting work that pays well and satisfies my need to create.