It's probably true that starting a startup is the only thing that can prepare you for starting a startup. But consulting is still a lot better for experience t

It's probably true that starting a startup is the only thing that can prepare you for starting a startup. But consulting is still a lot better for experience than a typical full-time jobs. What FT job will teach you about provisioning equipment or anything about accounting? I believe it was Joel Spolsky that said the success of a software company was based on how well it turned developer hours into money. What better place to do this than somewhere where you trade your own hours into your own money? It's obviously not a seamless transition from consultant to startup founder, as the author has indicated. But in general you'll learn a lot more about running a business as a consultant than you otherwise would as an FTE anywhere.