As someone who has started a business in the finance space trying to leverage technology, I take some offense to this. My business partners and I have worked o

As someone who has started a business in the finance space trying to leverage technology, I take some offense to this. My business partners and I have worked our asses off over the last several years to get to where we are today: billions of dollars in assets powered by our investment models. Trust me: asking someone to give you money to put in your strategies is not easy. Unlike the start-up space, there is no "minimum viable product," "traction" metric, or even "asset" that has some intrinsic value (like a unique algorithm or brand). You either have a track record, or you don't. New strategies don't, so it's all "trust." Sure, I can show a "back-test" or "stress-test" -- but everyone knows those are bullshit anyway. You think you know stress? Imagine knowing that every day, your models are making investment decisions for billions of dollars. Sure, it's a drop in the overall pool of assets in markets, but it is enough to keep you up at night, worried about someone's retirement or someone's college fund. Drop a few more percentage points than the market? Goodbye hundreds of millions of dollars. Yep, that's going to happen at 50 when you start your "easy life" as a hedge-fund manager. I'm not saying my stress is greater. I'm just trying to make the point that every business has its own share of problems, and to say that being a tech entrepreneur takes any more balls than being any other kind of entrepreneur is naive. Can we please stop, as a community, with the "woe is us, the tech entrepreneur?" It's embarrassing. Starting a business is starting a business, no matter the industry. In fact, I'd argue that we live in a golden age for tech entrepreneurship that has never existed in another industry. Imagine trying to start a bio-tech business or a manufacturing business (well, arguably "outsourcing" could be the manufacturing entrepreneur's "scale"...). There are no "seed" rounds. The assets you have to raise are probably 100x what a tech entrepreneur has to initially raise. On top of trying to build a product, you probably have to manage building and factory development, understand legal regulations for your industry, and manage tons of labor. We live in a time where you can roll the dice and start a business in the tech space with a handful of smart people, some elbow-grease and maybe $50k in a seed round. This is a golden era. I respect the hell out of what you are doing -- starting a business is NOT easy -- but please don't say it takes any more balls than starting a business in any other industry. It doesn't.