> I think the skill most people lack is just initiative and risk tolerance. Behind many, if not most, highly successful people, there's often a story of them just trying lots of stuff until something sticks.

Also remember survivorship bias: lots of folks with "initiative and [high?] risk tolerance" fail, but you may not hear about them.

Obligatory:

* https://xkcd.com/1827/

I don't think most fail is the right word. Because for instance appealing to my personal anecdote of my friend pack of serial entrepreneurs, they're mostly making beer money from their projects.

If you clocked the hours they spent and compared it to a decent consulting fee then yeah - they're losing lots of money. But in reality they're doing that stuff during the time that most of us are shit posting, browsing the web, playing games, and so on. And so if you compare it to that, they're making a hefty chunk of change with the upside that they do have a chance, whatever it may be, of something really sticking and that being their to the Moon project. And you know, even just getting to the atmosphere is enough for a life changing result.

Or getting back to the Y Combinator thing. It costs $0 to apply, and the worst that happens is that they say no. All it takes is giving up a bit of time off our shitposting time. But that's somehow not an offer many of us are willing to accept, which is really pretty weird if you think about it!