Hrm, the parallel feels really forced to me. You can invest money in multiple startups at the same time, to hedge your bets. You can't do that with your time if you plan on working full-time.
For example. If you could bet on a coin flip 100k times at $1 a bet, you might be willing to accept getting paid $1.01 per win. But if you had to bet $100k on a single coin flip, you would likely need the payout to be much greater before you were willing to take the bet.
In the meantime you may have traded your youth for magic beans - putting off things like getting a house, a girlfriend, etc because you are working long hours for sub-market pay. That is the real tragedy.
Just wanted to repeat this for emphasis ;-)