Failure, failing, and being “a failure” is such a part of tech culture that it is a cultural locus for entire posts, blogs, pep talks and conventions.
Failure is universally feared and derided, yet framed and re-framed again and again as a means of staying positive, of learning from mistakes, of using failure as a measure of working hard for success.
The ideal of success in tech is married to the terror of failure.
In that I can definitely relate to the "fear of failure" thing. Especially being one of the older guys doing this stuff, and walking around with a constant feeling of "I haven't done anything yet, and I'm pretty much down to my last shot." But by the same token, I'm always reminded of something I heard a long time ago:
"In business, you only have to be right once."
I find that thought to be a powerful antidote to some of the darker thoughts that creep in from time to time. I keep reminding myself that if this idea doesn't pan out, that it's entirely possible that the next one will be "the one" so to speak.
What undoubtedly makes it worse is the public nature of tech culture, populated with gossip bloggers happy to run any item for page views, the better if it humiliates their competitors. Add to this that the very nature of tech work itself is inherently isolating.
This may be one advantage to being on the East Coast and removed from the typical SV gossip machine and echo chamber. Nobody really talks about what we're doing, and the only time my blog posts make it to HN (or similar) is usually when I post them. And even that's usually just because I'm curious to see if anybody has anything to say. So we get to sorta "fly under the radar" at least so far. Thinking about it, that might actually be one good reason to adopt a least a "semi stealth" approach to your startup... perhaps it's a way to not go soliciting pressure and expectations until you're really ready for them.