I don't care about becoming very wealthy. The odds of success are too low. Sam ignores the hard question, which is what is the likelihood that you will spend many years of your life on a "hard problem" (or multiple problems) that end fruitlessly? I suspect it is quite high, and the failures are underreported. I've decided to just settle for a regular five-figures job that lets me afford my hobbies, which I find much more invigorating than wealth or coding. I have a side-project, which is numerical weather prediction in mountainous regions (something unlikely to be highly profitable), but it's a tinkering project that I enjoy even if it doesn't work out.
That's a false dichotomy. Just because something doesn't end the way you would prefer doesn't mean that it ends fruitlessly. It is possible to enjoy and gain from the work even if the project or company isn't ultimately a success. Most of the projects that I've worked on never went anywhere, but that doesn't mean I didn't still enjoy myself or learn something valuable.
In '99 I left a relatively standard and easy 9 to 5 type job at Intel to join a startup. My assumption was that the startup would fail, because that's generally what startups do, but it gave me the opportunity to work on systems that I found interesting (specifically Linux, which was still kind of fringe back then) and learn from very smart co-workers. I spent more time at work, but I did so because I was enjoying myself and learning a lot. Personally, I'd much rather spend 12 hours doing something I love than 8 hours doing something I hate.
Just because you are aiming for the stars doesn't mean you can't still enjoy the journey. For me, it's more fun to fail at something audacious then succeed at something mundane. Of course others are free to feel differently, and I would never claim that this is the right decision for everyone.
There's an argument to be made that society is better off with a very large population of relatively high achieving, but generally well balanced people, as opposed to a small elite of overachieving workaholics and those clamoring to gain access to that club.
I'm actually a hobbyist mushroom forager. I think mushroom growth is too dependent on micro-environments, like proximity to a certain tree and receiving the right amount of shade, to be predicted by weather. I could be wrong though.
