It seems like a lot of people assume that the success or failure of a startup is entirely random. A statistic is not the same thing as a probability, and it's d

It seems like a lot of people assume that the success or failure of a startup is entirely random. A statistic is not the same thing as a probability, and it's dangerous to conflate the two. Just because less than 1% of startups succeed to the degree that you can retire on your equity, it doesn't mean that there aren't ways you can tell when your equity is that valuable. You can look at the team, the product, the marketplace, your customers, and your overall gut feeling to decide that. Treating the statistic as a probability ignores all of that valuable information.