[JohnFen]

I don't think it's any harder now on the whole. Some things are even easier. Creating a successful startup was never easy. Not then, and not now.

You have to remember that books like Fire in the Valley tend to portray a romanticized version of events and usually leave out a lot of the real daily grind and struggles because they usually aren't entertaining to read about.

Edit to add: also, books like "Fire in the Valley" are talking about the startups that were successful. They don't tend to mention the one that failed, which is the vast majority of them. Even then.