Is it though? At that point in his life, perhaps late twenties, how much accumulated life savings could he possibly have? If he lost it all, he would probably put himself maybe 10 years back, sucks, but not unrecoverable. How often does a moonshot come around? What other point in his life could he have taken such a risk? Maybe there’s some wisdom here, it’s not all luck.
Luck. There were a million other more promising moonshots at the time. He rolled the dice and lucked out. He also could have taken his life saving and taken it to Vegas and made even more money.
