It's because we couldn't imagine ourselves doing anything else. It's certainly not about the money. If I wanted money I'd be doing some tech/marketing consult

It's because we couldn't imagine ourselves doing anything else. It's certainly not about the money. If I wanted money I'd be doing some tech/marketing consulting or would have continued on the God awful finance track that was so hot when I started undergrad. It's pure love of the game when you get down to the heart of it. There's a certain love for creating something from nothing. Sadly, there's too much hype out there from the press/blogging community because that's what gets them pageviews. Nothing wrong being a salaried 90k .net developer either. This isn't for everyone. It isn't for most to be honest. Now is the best time ever to start something though. The costs to at least see if it will work are close to nothing and if it does work out, the tools to charge are there/raise money to scale are heavily available.