> Given that most successful exits nowadays are through acquisition Yes. We should also note that IPOs are much more rare than they once were, the entire world

> Given that most successful exits nowadays are through acquisition Yes. We should also note that IPOs are much more rare than they once were, the entire world economy is flat or failing, and the flurry of $1M/employee acqu-hires from last year by Apple, Google and Facebook was an aberration and not an economic principle that is likely to be repeated, and even then didn't benefit the actual engineers. The reward upside on yet-another-startup doing the same thing is quite poor. On the other hand, creating your own business and avoiding VC's entirely is still a good bet compared to these other alternatives. For those who want risk, it's a great way to go. For risk avoiders, there's tons of well compensated employment working for mature and reasonable companies. What is the value proposition of these startups that have low compensation, completely retarded so-called products, and almost no chance whatsoever of going public? None.