I think one should argue that starting a business is high risk, mediocre reward. Most businesses just kinda trudge along, not leaving with the fairy tale returns of FAANG. Those are unicorns for a reason. Most of the businesses I've worked for, some of the founders are still working there and while they are pretty well off, they either havent sold yet (no big payday) or they made a meager sale netting them a very good pay, but probably averaged less than an engineer in SV on a 10 year horizon.