I don't think it is "mostly" true. This is a romanticized view of both startup failure and what your non-startup peers may or may not be doing by choosing the "safe" employee path.
- startup founders and employees are often complete freaks. they wouldn't get hired at Google in the first place, and are definitely not interested in pee-wee softball and 2.2 Volvos in the garage. Statistically, the type-A Ivy League wunderkinds are taking those stable jobs. The bulk of startup founders I meet dropped out of no-name schools or even high school.
- if you are an early employee at a VC funded startup you make close to market rate salary... that's the whole point of the VC funding... to hire key employees.
- the most successful startups I know of were founded by people who still had jobs, were in graduate school, or saved up a bunch of money at a previous job.
- Another unspoken story about startup founders is that a significant percentage of them come from wealthy families or have parents with serious connections in the industry. It is easier to take "risks" when you have a trust fund.
- The valley is filled with MORE sad, "failed" people who toiled as an employee at Yahoo or Apple or Adobe for 7 years, then freaked out or got laid off.
I'm also not sure the novelist community is littered with sad failures, either. Most novelists have day jobs. It is unlikely many failed or successful novelists passed over a lucrative corporate marketing career to suffer for their craft.
- startup founders and employees are often complete freaks. they wouldn't get hired at Google in the first place, and are definitely not interested in pee-wee softball and 2.2 Volvos in the garage. Statistically, the type-A Ivy League wunderkinds are taking those stable jobs. The bulk of startup founders I meet dropped out of no-name schools or even high school.
- if you are an early employee at a VC funded startup you make close to market rate salary... that's the whole point of the VC funding... to hire key employees.
- the most successful startups I know of were founded by people who still had jobs, were in graduate school, or saved up a bunch of money at a previous job.
- Another unspoken story about startup founders is that a significant percentage of them come from wealthy families or have parents with serious connections in the industry. It is easier to take "risks" when you have a trust fund.
- The valley is filled with MORE sad, "failed" people who toiled as an employee at Yahoo or Apple or Adobe for 7 years, then freaked out or got laid off.
I'm also not sure the novelist community is littered with sad failures, either. Most novelists have day jobs. It is unlikely many failed or successful novelists passed over a lucrative corporate marketing career to suffer for their craft.