Yet somehow, FU money is not on the poll. So I don't see how that settles anything. A more interesting poll would have been to ask that question specifically.

How does "You have enough saved up so that even if things blew up you could last a year or more" not cover that option?

I lived on 2k$ a month for two years. I saved up 50k$ from contract work in order to accomplish that. I really don't think that counts as FU money.

My original statement (review the posts) was

"Many if not most entrepreneurs already made their FU money or already had a cash reserve."

It sounds like you already had a cash reserve.

You reached the max nesting with your last comment so I'll continue here - I'm not playing any games. If anything, I would say you are by not specifically saying "FU money" or something equivalent (i.e, being rich) in your poll and then claiming that being able to last a year qualifies. What does "blowing it up" means? it can mean a hundred different things. You obviously had something in mind when you wrote it, I read something completely different.

Anyway, I digress, this argument is getting nowhere. I got from your post and examples that you believe most founders do not put anything on the line when they're starting up. That's your prerogative. Lets just agree to disagree on that and move on.

The examples you gave (Dorsey, Zuckerburg) pointed much more in the direction of the latter. Putting it the context of the original argument, I indeed put it all on the line by stopping to work completely and living a very barebone life. That's completely different from VCs who really have FU money and are not affected (or marginally affected) financially when their investments don't pan out.

Back to the poll, the option of FU money (enough so you wouldn't be affected by not working for a year or several) - is not there.

to make it crystal clear, the examples were:

- Dorsey was putting it all on the line with Square -- at that point he had his personal wealth secure thanks to twitter (already raised quite a bit of VC money and already paid himself).

- Bill Gates had family money in the form of a trust before microsoft was conceived.

- Mark Zuckerberg's parents were in the position to kick in money to Facebook (and in some accounts, they actually did, though I know neither of them and everything on the topic is hearsay)

- Bill Nguyen was already an accomplished entrepreneur by the time he started Color

In half the examples, the money was self-made, and in the other half there was familial support.

"That's completely different from VCs who really have FU money and are not affected (or marginally affected) financially when their investments don't pan out."

You are playing games here. Many VCs (especially some of the newer ones) don't have a track record and work hard to establish one by researching, picking whom they think are winners, and providing support. It's obvious today that investing in Facebook or Twitter at the pre-1B stage would be profitable, but it wasn't quite as obvious back then. And if a new VC has a string of losers, you can bet your bottom dollar they'll have a very hard time drumming up the next vintage.

Back to the poll, given the context (which I thought was self-explanatory) the option "You have enough saved up so that even if things blew up you could last a year or more" -- 169 votes at the time of this comment -- is the one that unites the aforementioned examples.