Are start-ups really “risky”?

The risky path of going out there and trying something, usually isn't quite as scary, because you have all sorts of diverse skills, probably many of which you never even realised you have, for roles that you probably don't even realise exist. And by going out there and discovering some of these and taking the leap, you'll probably open up many more doors that would've never even been in your consciousness or that you'd even been on aware of had you not gone out and taken that risk. When you start your career, it's whatever jobs you've heard about in school, being a lawyer, a doctor, a banker. All the roles that you have in a startup, for example, you never know about when you leave school. These roles that are super cool and really interesting, but they're not going to appear on your high school or your university career site.

And so I think that's why the risky path probably isn't as risky, because it'll actually open up so many more doors to you and so many more things that you'd never thought of. And I think that's why when thinking about risk, it's like, well actually maybe it's a little bit scary leaving something that's secure and stable, but actually you open so many other doors that were never previously opened to you, that that's probably de-risking rather than adding risk. I suppose you can think, if you got 20 years into your career and have only done one thing and that's very common in older generations, but in this generation that might actually make it harder to move more often if you've just done 20 years all in the same place. And so exploring and discovering things feels actually like the less risky option.