| HN Mirror

> we are talking about those people who are willing to trade off security for a chance of building something great

I object to your phrasing (though not your thesis), because it's the type of phrasing used for other forms of hero worship: police, firefighters, military personnel, etc. It's the kind of wording used by star-struck wannabes, to be frank.

I also object to your use of "great", because I think that--with few exceptions--most startups aren't working on stuff that'll make the world a better place. Most startups work on stuff that'll get funded; that means you see lots of largely similar companies in startupland. (I suspect a contributing factor is also the relative lack of life experience of a lot of these founders: they simply haven't seen enough of the world to be more imaginative[1].) And that generally isn't stuff that will make the world better, because those kinds of problems are hard, and often require lots of financial and non-financial capital to work, even if at the end of the day, there's a lot of money to be made for the players that are successful.

> Not everyone is suited for this sort of thing

Normative phrasing aside, there're equally-valid alternative explanations: not everyone believes they are a beautiful and unique snowflake. Or, gambling is more fun when done at a casino. :)

[1] You alluded to a phenomenon in your other comment, about younger people not knowing how to tackle a problem they might encounter if they worked for a big company. I suspect that's more a function of lack of experience in that they couldn't even imagine the problem unless they'd worked in an environment where it would arise. I suspect this is why you see relatively few enterprise-y, B2B startups, despite the untapped goldmines in that space.