[jgross206]

except the wealth that could be created if the brilliant guy spent the year on other pursuits instead of noops

[dsl]

Well by that logic, we shouldn't work for startups that have the potential to fail... because you could be creating negative value!

[rdl]

The expected return of a startup is usually higher than the expected return of a bigco job and almost always higher than doing nothing. The actual return is more often lower, but sometimes turns out to be really high.

[XorNot]

Which is why you should evaluate the risk/reward of a start up carefully.

It's also why, for example, bank robberies aren't worth it.