[ojbyrne]

To your first 2 questions - maybe? I have read a few books about drug smugglers, and they're often quite interesting people. I've certainly met some entrepreneurial types I didn't at all like, plus there's plenty of them out there who basically get screwed (down rounds, recapitalization, etc). Assuming entrepreneurship always leads to happy endings seems to be a common fallacy.

And while we always hear about the entrepreneurs who succeed, we always hear about the drug smugglers who fail. It's difficult to estimate proportions in both cases.

[rjurney]

The guys who are worth telling popular stories about are the 'good guy' exceptions. The typical large-scale cocaine trafficker is not a nice person.

That being said, you're probably about as likely to get busted as you are to go broke, but at least in a startup you just lose all your money.

[geeko]

This is a good point. We just lack the data to make any predictions whether going the "road less traveled by" leads to success (whatever that means) and assume that "all the difference" equals good (whereas it's rather neutral).

[1] Robert Frost: The Road Not Taken (http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html)