Yeah, but that's not exactly the same thing. We're all going to die from our bodies breaking down, old age, wear and tear, whatever, someday (car crashes, etc., aside, and assuming some of Ray Kurzweil's more fanciful ideas don't come to fruition soon).

But something that stands to "kill you right now" is a bit of a different beast to most of us. And in that regard, Steve is exactly right... put the startup in context: No matter how stressful it is, or what's going on, it's till not life and death in the sense of how most people use that term.

My own version of this comes from having been a volunteer firefighter for about a decade.. a period during which I had at least 3 experiences where I came very close to being seriously injured or killed (and was lucky enough to escape all 3 unscathed). I was also a 911 dispatcher during part of that same period, so I spent a lot of time up close and personal with literal "life and death" situations. When you've been there, it changes the way you look at the day in, day out stuff that goes on in business. Yeah, it's important... but it's never that important.

That's what I was going to say: it's not a mortal danger but we should not ignore the fact that plenty of people have committed suicide after the battling depression brought on by a failed/failing business.

That seems a bit like saying that eating a pie is dangerous because stabbing yourself with the fork can severely wound you. It's true, but since you aren't obligated to stab yourself with a fork when you eat pie, it seems odd to conflate the two. It's a bad decision all on its own.

Yes! I knew a 22 year old developer who had a heart attack. He had a super unhealthy lifestyle, was overweight, ate crap, worked insane hours and was super stressed out.

If he was 30 with those habits, he might have, indeed died.

I recently met a young woman working in the Mission at a tech company in customer support. She has cancer, and she's waiting another month for her health insurance to kick in.

The consequences of this stuff could actually be life and death. That said, the risk for most people is quite low.

Absolutely true, here's a story from 2008: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25607064

One of the ways to avoid that fate is to maintain a sense of perspective, as the article author suggests.

The difference is that in one you're pulling the metaphorical trigger on yourself and in the other someone else is.