My question to the startup experience HN crowd is: What would be the right questions to ask before joining a startup to gauge the success and failure possibilities in the future?
You answered your own question. Are they smart enough to make a solid plan and execute it? Are they smart enough to not miss a beat when their solid plan inevitably goes off the rails? Is the leadership humble enough to behave like this? Are they confident enough to be transparent about it? These are my personal metrics. There is no predicting the future, so I assess how the leadership handles making mistakes. The rest is just market statistics.