Most of us here on HN have done a startup, been an early employee of a startup or hang out here at least in part because we dream of doing a startup. Given thos

Most of us here on HN have done a startup, been an early employee of a startup or hang out here at least in part because we dream of doing a startup. Given those biases I think the default is leaning that way. On the other hand you already appear to be living the alternate dream talked about often here on HN - good job at a tech giant at least if it is one of the FANG and not one of the older school tech giants. My own experiences would indicate that one should not underestimate the likelihood of market failure. When we say "high risk high reward" many of us focus much more on the second half of that phrase and discount the first half. We assume that we are smart enough to avoid the risks and persevere till we reap the rewards. And, sometimes we are, but often we are not. Just the other day I ruminated with a friend that I almost certainly would have been a lot better off financially picking a boring but useful domain and getting really good at that rather route that I did take. Focusing on R&D, innovation and a couple of versions of startups. On the other hand I feel like my life has been pretty interesting.