Fear of patents and lawsuits has often prevented me from pursuing an idea. It's difficult to find related work in patents, and anybody can start a lawsuit. Ma

Fear of patents and lawsuits has often prevented me from pursuing an idea. It's difficult to find related work in patents, and anybody can start a lawsuit. Many patents are vague and way too general and can be used against you even if you think they're about something totally unrelated to what you're doing. I've made several attempts to start a business and it's scary exposing yourself to the public in that way. Marketing is also really difficult, you are literally competing with millions of other voices trying to get yours heard. Getting rich also often seems to require a willingness to climb on the backs of other people, to use them to their disadvantage to advantage yourself which I found I didn't want to do. Part of being a climber is pulling other people down, and that seems like a bad way to live. There are exceptions to all these, but many of them are typically encountered when starting a business. To get really rich it seems to me that you either have to inherit, be lucky, or be really mean and dirty.