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They're also more motivated to succeed.

I have a wife and two kids (both under 5) and a big mortgage. I pay myself barely enough for us to get by (the lowest salary that I've ever earned). The difference is made up in savings and my wife's occasional consulting work. I'm the lowest paid in the company.

The cost of failure is so much higher, which simply means you're far more driven to succeed.

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Absolutely. When the fate of your family hangs in the balance, you're not going to walk away just because it stops being fun.

I'd argue that this can actually be a huge liability. Sometimes (a lot of the time, a majority of the time?) a ship's just gonna sink, and being overinvested in its not sinking can obscure the escape route, so to speak. Hard to imagine a scenario in which being able to shift gears/directions on 'go' isn't preferable to needing a specific thing to work out.

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