> if you have the financial risk tolerance to work at a startup, why not start your own company instead?

I don't think I'm ready for that yet, and I'd like to think that working at a startup will better prepare me for starting my own.

What really sent me down this path was PG's comment suggesting that "you can titrate the amount of startupness you get in your job by the size of the company you join." (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1346224) It's not a binary decision, but a sliding scale.