Start a company: You + enough business not to go under in X months = covering living expenses for one person or family = $50k / year starting negative of working up to profitable
10x = $500k / year, by the previous measure = competing with the top end of a big tech salary.
So there are people reasonably "unhappy" at 10x because of opportunity costs.
Being able to create an honest, profitable business pulling in 'only' 500k$/annum. Must suck to be that guy.
It's real easy to play the 'grass is always greener' game. Everyone has their own aims in life. Some want money, some want to live a life they're proud of and pretty much everyone is some combination of the two. But trying to frame someone establishing a business with 10x-20x growth as a failure, assuming they're able to support themselves and believe in the value of their venture, is absurd.
That is decent, but considering all those factors, far from a huge win. If they had put similar work (with the same skill set) into a normal job, they would likely have similar returns with less risk.
Especially since there is large ongoing risk of market shifts or the like making it fail with no warning in the future, and at least working in someone else’s enterprise they wouldn’t have their capital at risk.
For some of us there's a lot more to life than whether or not the wealth we accumulate squares up with the amount of risk that we take on compared to others. Being able to contribute to something you believe in while being able to avoid Taleb's silent graveyard doing it is enough.
There are many others who make different bargains of course, and for their own legitimate reasons.
It’s very, very high risk even getting here though, and not just money.