Staying employed and slowly building your wealth is not a riskless proposition. Past 20 years have been very nice to the tech sector and to equities in general. What are you going to say when your employer suddenly collapses and takes your pension/stock wealth with it (Enron, Bear Stearns etc)?
Even more extreme -- what if the whole economic cycle reverses, the currency devalues and inflation eats up your savings? Hard to imagine, but economic systems have this capacity for extreme events. I know the whole generation of honest engineers in Soviet Union who have not built a capital to retire on (obviously) and who were left desolate in their 50s-60s without pensions or jobs when their state companies/research labs collapsed.
Startup offers an option to strike it rich. If you hit the sweet spot of some business 'fitness function' - then you're set for life. If not, the most obvious strategy is to try as many startups as possible in your lifetime. This is like having a venture fund spread in time. One of your holdings should make it, the rest of them you expect to fail. It's nice if the winner comes when you're in your 20s :) But not necessary.
However, focusing on a single make-or-brake business idea and betting your farm (life) on it is a stupid idea. It is sad that many engineers are actually one-idea phenomena simply because of their specialization. Venture capitalists are in the best position, as they sit on the portfolio of options (startups).
Of course nothing is riskless, but it's pretty close if done properly. Plowing all of your retirement savings into the stock of your employer is something that anyone who spends ten minutes Googling "how to manage my money" knows is retarded.
I'm sure it's possible to instead put your 401k and IRA money into a diversified collection of ETFs and bonds and such and still end up broke, but it hasn't happened yet, and if it does, our entire country is in a very bad place.
Even more extreme -- what if the whole economic cycle reverses, the currency devalues and inflation eats up your savings? Hard to imagine, but economic systems have this capacity for extreme events. I know the whole generation of honest engineers in Soviet Union who have not built a capital to retire on (obviously) and who were left desolate in their 50s-60s without pensions or jobs when their state companies/research labs collapsed.
Startup offers an option to strike it rich. If you hit the sweet spot of some business 'fitness function' - then you're set for life. If not, the most obvious strategy is to try as many startups as possible in your lifetime. This is like having a venture fund spread in time. One of your holdings should make it, the rest of them you expect to fail. It's nice if the winner comes when you're in your 20s :) But not necessary.
However, focusing on a single make-or-brake business idea and betting your farm (life) on it is a stupid idea. It is sad that many engineers are actually one-idea phenomena simply because of their specialization. Venture capitalists are in the best position, as they sit on the portfolio of options (startups).