[startingup]

The reason this "upside" notion is so pernicious is that it's fed by powerful biases. We read about the successes. Even the failures we hear about, we're reading about them by and large because they were "successful".

You hit the nail on the head. I know 4 very talented engineers who have been in silicon valley for 12+ years each. I have tried to recruit all of them at various times, but they have always been swimming in great offers, in good times and bad, so they are good. Between them, they have worked in at least 10 start-ups. While none of them are starving, no one got rich either. They have lived frugally, so they have a decent pile saved up, but that was done the old fashioned way, not through hitting the lottery.