tarsnap is a one man show and he's not building a startup. he could've easily worked at Google, take advantage of the rising stock prices AND continue work on his SaaS. Lot of us do exactly that because it doesn't make sense to leave a good paying job at a large company to take on tremendous risk at as you said, consuming endeavour with small probability of success (+90% failure rate).

I don't get why people are so upset at my comment or why that should warrant ad hominem attacks.

I merely mentioned that parent could've had a job at Google and benefited from it. He made it sound like it was a power move, it really wasn't. My argument is only that he took on even more risk by not taking advantage of Google's offer and growing stock prices to fund his passion. He doesn't seem like the type to get distracted by a day job either.