I think about this most days. The problem is that startups that fail put you very far behind relative to peers and the majority of startups fail.
It's fun, but it's also gambling with your financial future.
It's fun, but it's also gambling with your financial future.
I think this really depends on what metric you're using for success. If it's finances, a failed startup is almost certainly a significant setback. In terms of experience, that's much more debatable.
maybe just replace delusional with 'idealistic' or some other dismissive but less directly offensive term
And so if we lifted people into positions where they didn't feel like their basic needs would be taken away if they didn't work some job making money then they could experiment and do things that were less transactional... But until we have that Star Trek future - we gonna be transactional.
You're not just saying that money isn't your metric of success, you are saying that nothing money can buy is your metric of success. Money can buy runway for your next startup, it can buy safety & security for your family, it can buy political influence, it can buy food for starving African children, and it can even buy time (shorter commutes and other peoples' time).
The world is full of people trying to convince you that making money for yourself shouldn't be a goal, but that helping them make money should be. These people don't ultimately care about money either, but they do care about something that money can buy, and they have internalized this fact.
If you truly don't care about anything that money can buy, all the power to you -- just please make sure you aren't being taken for a ride by someone using "money isn't the metric of success" to vampire your time and energy.