My guess would be it's a combination of: 1. Many good eng's might not have the skills to fundraise/run the business side, and with them more often having frien

My guess would be it's a combination of: 1. Many good eng's might not have the skills to fundraise/run the business side, and with them more often having friends that are also eng's maybe there's less likely to be a match to have a business counterpart. That coupled with missing domain knowledge means that some eng's jump to take those jobs. However I have heard from a successful founder that the early engineers that are good are very hard to attract. 2. Loss aversion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion; people more often seek to avoid downside rather than pursue upside.