[coliveira]

The idea that I'm talking about is that the reward from a company is proportional to the risk taken. My example shows that small companies can sometimes impose a greater risk to their founders than the risk taken by the founders of Facebook or Google.

[jessedhillon]

And? What is your point then? Would you be upset if the gold mine you discovered took 100' of digging before it yielded even an ounce, but your neighbor picked a spot where he only needed to dig 10' to get a pound of it?

The fact that the risk wasn't called in, so to speak -- that the worst case scenarios did not come to pass -- in no way diminishes what was risked. Beside, you have cherry-picked two cases where it is quite easy to construct a plausible a sounding (and factually false) "no risk" argument. HN routinely features entrepreneurship efforts where much was gained and much was won. Your main gripe appears to be that the risk-reward maxim is not describing a literal, linear relationship.

Next up, the sun doesn't always set in the west! (provided certain map orientations, times of the year and fluctuations in magnetic north)