[optimiz3]

It means willing to incur the significant opportunity costs (income and benefits) of not working for an established company.

EDIT: Also the risk to reputation and social stigma that goes along with being poor...and enduring this for years...until you're not :).

[analog31]

That's valid, though even those risks can be mitigated to some extent by having wealth or a side income. It's still risk in terms of dollars times probability, but not in terms of the risk of getting thrown out on the street.

And in other cases, the risk could be real after all. For instance the high probability of failure for start-ups is a pretty straightforward measure of risk, and the people who start start-ups are probably incurring that risk on average.

[ryancarson]

I like that definition :)