I think the OP makes some excellent points, but unfortunately he uses the phrase "no risk" instead of, as I'd phrase it, "dramatically less risk." There is def

I think the OP makes some excellent points, but unfortunately he uses the phrase "no risk" instead of, as I'd phrase it, "dramatically less risk." There is definitely opportunity cost. At the beginning you won't have an income. If you're 30, like myself, you'll watch your friends who didn't go down the same road start to pile up "stuff." Cars, houses, whatever. They'll have it and you won't. Even if your startup turns a corner to provide lifestyle income, there are still issues. This is a purely anecdotal example, but yesterday my wife and I went to a bank to talk about pre-qualifying for a mortgage loan, and apparently you need two years of self-employment history. But here was the point that I think got lost in such a binary stated view of risk: right now it's easy to jump back on the totem pole. If I really wanted to buy property that bad, I could get a job making well over my previous salary within weeks. There are not a lot of entrepreneurial endeavors where that is true. Consider something like opening a restaurant. There is not just opportunity cost but real investment cost before you even get started. And if you bomb, and statistically it's very likely you will, there is not nearly the the likelihood you can at least go back to where you started. As another anecdotal example, my friend is a second year lawyer at a firm, one of the few people in his graduating class that got a nice corporate law job so that he actually has a chance to pay off his massive loans. And he pretty much hates his life, but there's a huge chance that if he left to pursue one of his dreams, there would be no "reset" button. There is no easy chance that if he doesn't succeed, he can just go back to being a highly compensated corporate lawyer within a few weeks. So yes, there's obviously risk in starting your own startup. There's always a cost to pursuing a dream, and not everyone wants to pay that cost. The distinction is as a technology startup founder in this current environment, your cost is dramatically lower than anyone else's, and I think that's ultimately what I think the OP is trying to say.