Decent VCs will let entrepreneurs cash out partially in order to have their incentives more aligned. Not all VCs are decent, though. It is pretty ridiculous whe

Decent VCs will let entrepreneurs cash out partially in order to have their incentives more aligned. Not all VCs are decent, though. It is pretty ridiculous when people who make $1-million salaries working 9-to-5 object to a founder taking out enough to buy a house. It reflects really badly on our society how much pitching and pain an entrepreneur has to endure just for a sliver of a chance at basic autonomy. Four decades ago, it was slightly harder to get extremely rich and solve "the money problem" outright (note: there is no such thing; when people get $5 million, most start wanting to compete with the $50-million crowd) but if you were smart you could get an R&D job with complete autonomy over what you worked on, how and when. That's gone now. I think that if VC-istan is where you want to be, however, starting as an entrepreneur is the wrong way to go (although it's better than being a non-founder employee). You're better off doing everything you can to become a VC, getting established enough that you always have a VC job as a backup, and building enough connections that you can raise money, and then starting a business if that's your inclination.