> but the engineers in question are exactly the kind of people who don't need to take outside investments and are able to bootstrap (as in use their own funds a

> but the engineers in question are exactly the kind of people who don't need to take outside investments and are able to bootstrap (as in use their own funds and rely on immediate/eventual cashflow). no, they're exactly the kind of person who wouldn't do a startup. you're thinking about this from the wrong end. risk averse people are generally the ones who make $1M/year at salaried jobs, exceptions like financial traders notwithstanding. quite frankly if i could make $1M/year working for a megacorp i wouldn't have started my own company. these two things are mutually exclusive for me. why would i bust my ass if i could take 2-week vacations whenever i wanted and get paid $1M/year due to my elite skills? in many respects, i started a company because i wasn't good enough to really 'make it' as an industry leading developer. i capped myself out as a consultant at about 150k/year. but i wanted more money. many of my associates who also own businesses (tech or otherwise) also started because they were basically unemployable due to a variety of factors. issues with authority, massive egos, chip on their shoulder due to a previous fuck-over or failure, inability to kiss ass, did terribly in school, have a felony conviction from their misspent youth, etc. these kinds of things aren't talked about in mainstream media but if you dig deep into an entrepreneur's past, you'll find this stuff a lot. normal, employable, salary-seeking people generally do not start companies of any kind.