To relate this to Hacker News even more... We are constantly told that we should risk our financial freedom to start a company. Go without pay take massive cre

To relate this to Hacker News even more... We are constantly told that we should risk our financial freedom to start a company. Go without pay take massive credit card debt to fund our company, etc. and we glorify people who have done that successfully and write off people who failed. Or worse, told to go without pay / deferred pay / less pay to work at someone else's company with less than 5% equity. Often less than 0.5% When someone tells me they felt a $4000+ booth at a conference was so critical to their company that they maxed out their personal cards I cringe. What this survey doesn't seem to have is how many of those people have negative savings (aka, debt). Also, it is unclear to me if homeowner equity is in the mix. Where I am the average house is $250k. In my neighborhood that is $400k. If I pay my mortgage diligently for the next 25 years and do basic upkeep (new roof, new furnace, etc) I will be in the $300k+ bracket too. I know for a huge number of people home ownership isn't an option but I'd point out it could very well explain why a large portion of people sit at $300k+.