I guess the reason it doesn’t change, is because the real world is where people are struggling to pay the mortgage, and pay for their kids, and maybe spend a bit of time with them. For most people, that is. There’s a few that have a different path, and a few that somehow find the energy despite the commute into the city that they didn’t want to move to, to make progress on their own ideas, despite likelihood of them succeeding being pretty small. Most will never get the time to truely put enough effort in, as they can’t take a sabbatical from work, as they don’t have enough savings, because they don’t earn enough. Like an expensive Apple product people get quite defensive about this lifestyle, as they’ve invested a lot of money in it.

I think if more people were willing to collaborate with others, in return for a small equity based on a day rate, this could change. But then if they are successful investors wont like there being lots of small shareholders who arn’t active employees, so perhaps early rounds would need to include a small pay off for those who arn’t active any more?

One way to make the world a bit more Unreal I think :)