<i>2. You don’t need to be Facebook</i><p>This should be number one - or even just the whole article.<p>Any startup, or a career in general, should not be an end unto itself, but a vehicle to A) fulfill your basic needs and B) get you what you want. While I believe entrepreneurship is often the best way to get both of these, shooting to be the next Facebook is unnecessary. You could keep that corporate job, build your credit, and then buy a McDonald&#x27;s or a gas station or an apartment building. There&#x27;s no reason to make a dent in the universe if all you want to do is put your kids through college and travel abroad once a year.<p>9 out of 10 startups fail. While these odds are better than many other paths to wealth (being born rich, winning the lottery, becoming a rockstar&#x2F;movie star&#x2F;pro athlete), you&#x27;re still likely to fail. If wealth is what you want, you need to ask yourself why you want to be wealthy. If it&#x27;s because you want nice things or want to travel or even because you want to feed starving people, there&#x27;s a path to get there that has much better odds than building extreme wealth.