You seem to share a common statistical misconception about success rates. If 10% of startups succeed, that doesn't mean that if you start a startup, your chances of succeeding are 10%. They are either much higher or much lower.
This is clearer if you consider a statement like "10% of men are over 6 feet tall." There's no one who has actually has a 10% chance of being over 6 feet tall. 10% of people have a 100% chance, and the remaining 90% have a 0% chance.
For the sort of person who has sufficient drive to get rich at all, starting a startup is a much more reliable way to do it than the overall success rate implies.
The frequentist way you're doing probability in that comment is not valid since the success or failure of one particular startup is not a repeatable experiment. The only valid interpretations are (1) the frequentist probability across a group of startups and (2) the degree of belief, or bayesian probability of a single startup's success. In this framework it is entirely reasonable to assign a 10% probability of success to one particular startup. I agree that if you knew beforehand that you're in the small group of people whose success rate exceeds your standard for reliability, then for that person a startup would be a reliable way to get rich. The problem is, of course: how do you know which group you're in?
I didn't mean to imply that for the right sort of person the odds are 100%. But they're pretty good. Probably over 30% and maybe as high as 50%. And since failing is usually pretty quick you could easily try 3 startups in 5 years.
As it turns out there is an easy way to know which group you're in: ask us. Like all venture investors, it's our job to answer that question, and we work very hard to try to do it well.
This is clearer if you consider a statement like "10% of men are over 6 feet tall." There's no one who has actually has a 10% chance of being over 6 feet tall. 10% of people have a 100% chance, and the remaining 90% have a 0% chance.
For the sort of person who has sufficient drive to get rich at all, starting a startup is a much more reliable way to do it than the overall success rate implies.