Starting a business isn't an obvious proposition, and an entrepreneur takes a lot of risk and puts a lot of startup money (their own or OPM / investors' money)

Starting a business isn't an obvious proposition, and an entrepreneur takes a lot of risk and puts a lot of startup money (their own or OPM / investors' money) on the line. I've never been that business person / VC and do resent occasionally that my software creativity and grit fuels their occasional outsized returns. However, they had the vision and so get the "surplus value" ... and I get a comfortable-enough lifestyle in return, especially given that lately I earn a somewhat-Bay-Area salary after having moved to North Carolina. If I were renting in the Bay Area I'm sure I'd be looking to get out, and since I sold our condo (unfortunately too soon, in 2013) there, I'm forever priced out of ever returning -- I won't pay the inflated rents there. I look at four of my relatives who started a Salesforce consultancy, especially my younger older brother who started the whole ball rolling. Though a full-time Boeing 757 pilot for a major airline, he got a software degree, specialized in Salesforce work, started working with others, hired an initial team, and introduced several family members to the whole gig. The relatives founded a partnership and had around 40 billable, very good, consultants working with them, and had committed to longer term real estate leases. They had some marquee clients and a good reputation. Then they hit what hits a lot of family businesses -- intractable personality conflicts. (I'd joined this partnership briefly in 2013 but then bowed out after several months since I guess SFDC consulting isn't my thing and greenfield software constructing/craftsmanship is, and mostly because I sensed those personality troubles brewing.) So ... my younger older brother and younger brother both were left winding down this once-promising consultancy, taking low pay, risking a bunch of collateral (e.g., homes) they thought they would lose at one point, and eking out a low, but at least in the end positive, return. They each would have done significantly better just working on their own for the four years ... and I benefited financially by sticking with the startup world. So ... I'd like to take a flyer some day on starting my own business one of these years, and I won't feel bad about taking some outlandish returns. If things turned out real well I think I'd pay "my team" more than had been promised them. But I've seen the risks founders take and admire that, and they deserve their gains.