Consider an alternate universe with far worse odds: 1 startup in a field of 100,000 makes $100 billion, the rest make zero. Expected value is $1 million. Shoul

Consider an alternate universe with far worse odds: 1 startup in a field of 100,000 makes $100 billion, the rest make zero. Expected value is $1 million. Should you be one of the 100,000 founders who "rationally" choose to buy a startup lottery ticket for $100b? Well of course! If you could live for long enough to run through thousands of iterations of the startup game, that is. In the real world, - Founders are typically limited to 1 startup at a time - It takes time - years perhaps - for a startup to fail - Founders can do only a few startups in their lifetimes Given low odds like 1%, with < 10 iterations per lifetime, expected value is the wrong metric. From a purely financial POV then, it appears only rational to do growth startups - If you are on the investing side (a "parallel" entrepreneur, running tens or hundreds of iterations in your lifetime) - You are a founder (a "serial" entrepreneur) with reasonable financial security and none of your life goals would be irrevocably damaged by the most likely outcome - a string of failures. (There are of course several non-financial reasons and payoffs. For instance, an Idea takes demonic possession of you, and the only way to exorcise from your tortured brain is to do a startup..)