Aaron Swartz wrote a long missive on why so few people get involved with startups -he starts this way:

What holds them back? The lack of a social safety net. A friend of mine, a brilliant young technologist who's been featured everywhere from PBS to Salon, stayed in academia and the corporate world while all of her friends were starting companies and getting rich. Why? Because she couldn't afford to lose her health insurance. Between skyrocketing prices and preexisting condition exclusions, it's almost impossible for anyone who isn't in perfect health to quit their job. (I only managed because I was on a government plan.)

And goes on to mention health care, child care, and a bunch of similar things. However, he misses the main issue for people my age (40's) who have a spouse and kids: time.

Face it: most people with a spouse and kids don't have the time required for a startup. Our credit and savings are generally better than that a 20 something has, but time is the real problem. A person at a startup is expected to spend "whatever it takes" at the office - 80, 100, 120 hour weeks are not uncommon.

Well.

Try being married with a kid in high school, and explaining to the family that you will be unavailable for anything over the next two years as you try to launch a new business. Sure, there are people who do that - they either have very tolerant spouses, or they end up divorced. However, the vast majority of people in such startups don't have that problem, because they are young and single - burning a year or two at both ends is a worthwhile risk. I'm sure that a lot of people in their 40's make the same calculation about these risks I have - my family is just a lot more important.

The risks are a lot higher when you hit your 40's, and have a family. Aaron is trying to devise a policy solution to a problem that really isn't amenable to such things.

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