That’s the whole point, you can’t deterministically know which company will make you rich in a couple years without a massive amount of luck (like my friend). M

That’s the whole point, you can’t deterministically know which company will make you rich in a couple years without a massive amount of luck (like my friend). My friend instead meant it as: “are you stupid? Why don’t you just do like me? It’s so easy and simple!”. I clearly have a lot of startups and pre IPO companies under my belt, and he knew that.