CEO of the startup I worked at had a child early in the process, and it was indeed incredibly hard for them individuallly and strained the marriage. After a few years of struggle, the startup was acquired, which was followed by a few years of comparatively relaxed (golden-handcuffed) work at the company that bought us. It paid for a new house that fit their family in an area with one of the best school systems in the country. I’m certain that he and his wife don’t regret it. He had worked for big companies before, had an insight about the industry he could bet on, so it was his maybe best shot at fulfilling a NEED to build a new company like his heroes did. It happened to ‘succeed’ in the financial sense, but his wife gets it either way, and his kid will benefit from growing up with confident, driven, risk-taking people as parents.

It’s hard for me to understand how most people in this thread, who I presume are super rigorous regarding their degrees of uncertainty about various things at work, have a clear answer for what everyone else should do in some barely specified situation.