[krschultz]

Success or failure has a large component of luck that people don't like to acknowledge. Especially counter-factual luck. My parents are very lucky to never have had to deal with serious illness, injury, accident, etc. I'm sure if there was a terrible car accident that killed my family, I wouldn't exactly be as focused on my work and therefore less 'succesful' as an entrepreneur.

But there is an element of uniqueness to dive into the entrepreneurship game at all. Plenty of people have ideas and do nothing at all with them. If you don't actually dive into it, quit your job, and work at it, it's impossible to build a business. Most people (the vast majority) don't have the balls to do that.

Hard work and taking that risk are necessary but insufficient conditions for entreprenurial success. You also need luck. But that doesn't discount the amount of risk taken or the amount of work put into it, and most people can't stomach that.

[aortega]

I agree with all you said, but consider that humans in general are terrible at estimating risk. I believe being an entrepeneur is not that risky, and being an employee is not that safe either. The main problem that I see about seeing entrepeneurship as unnaturally bold, risk-takers, creative intelligent people, is that you dehumanize the no-entrepeneur person, in such a way that's very easy to exploit them, because, they are like cattle, non-risk takers, and deserve it, right?

[swombat]

Funnily enough, I covered exactly this point in an earlier article, though this one wasn't so popular with the hn crowd..

http://swombat.com/2012/6/18/entrepreneurship-safest-career

[kator]

I agree.. I often say the real talent is being in the right place at the right time. Sadly that's not always an option and sometimes it's hard work that helps even the odds.