I think startups are too glamorized. Almost everyone from my previous company wanted to do startups, including myself. It is so seducing because you suddenly change from a typical employee to a charismatic CEO that everyone looks up to. It is even more seductive when you didn’t turn out to be as good as your fellows. All of the sudden, you are ahead of your peers, and this thought really bombards your head with a flood of dopamine. Even reasonable skepticism seems trivial to you.

Only 10% of startups survive.

“And I will be in that 10% because I was always at top of the class in school. Never giving up is my unique trait. This is my life calling. Many CEOs wanted to give up but grinded through, and look at them. They are billionaires! And I’m smarter than them! (more)”

I do think doing startups is really an heroic act considering the odds that you have to face. However, I am worried that people underestimate the danger of startups. I don’t think people underestimate the amount of hours they have to put into startups. They underestimate the unpredictability of startups. No matter how hard they try, the outcomes are based on probabilities.

You can get lucky and what you are doing may be what the world needs at the moment. Every day, the newspaper mentions topics related to your startup, and venture capitalists want to invest heavily in your company. However, other extremes can equally happen. You develop amazing products, but, out of nowhere, insane products like ChatGPT come up, and seven years of R&D become useless. Or, you develop amazing products, and the market says, “Wow this is mind blowing. But, I don’t need it.”

What I want to say is that after a quick rush of dopamine, we should focus on risk management. If we spend so many hours picking the best jacket for ourselves, why don’t we do the same for startups? After all, there are safer ways to start a company like having a modest, stable job alongside it. If we are not born as gambler, why suddenly become one for startups?