You and I agree that there are only "a few thousand" people in the US in a given year who are "in a position to shoot for an M&A." There are, however, at least 10x those numbers in hopefuls… people who believe that they could do it, even though they never will be able to, and many of those people get funding and end up with nothing to show for it but a few wasted years of life. Meanwhile because of the 522 M&As etc we hear about one just about every day, making it seem so much more likely than it really is.
Let's be clear: It is vanishingly unlikely.
In addition:
"In my experience, both take a roughly similar toll on your life, but a lifestyle business doesn't have the upside to make the whole thing worth it. In a software development industry, a family where both partners are professional can bring in > $250k in salary each year working regular full time jobs, which is a very cushy lifestyle. I see no sense in working 16 hour days for a shot at the same salary."
For a talk I gave at Lessconf a few days ago, I broke down the numbers. Assuming 25% ownership in a startup which reached an $8 million dollar sale (which is much higher than most, as I'm sure you know), that results in less than $2 million post-tax.
I ran the numbers in the talk to demonstrate how much my business, Freckle Time Tracking, a most boring SaaS, would make in the same time period and beyond the 5 & 1/2 years of leisure post-3-year-lock-in. (Assuming a not immoderate spend of $10k/mo and savings of $5k/mo -- remember, if you get lock-in -- and most do -- you will have to work out of the Valley, where everything is expensive.)
My time tracking product alone will bring in significantly more than the buyout after 6 years, nearly triple what an $8 million dollar buyout would over a period of 9 years. And what's more, it keeps earning.
That's just one of the little "lifestyle" businesses my husband & I have going. We don't work 16-hour days. We don't even work 40-hour weeks. We did for about a year, year and a half, but we also took weeks and weeks off in the same time period.
Time tracking, let me repeat. Boring, "saturated," blah blah blah. Time tracking alone will make me us millionaires by the time I'm 30 -- on the side, and better yet, with 100% ownership. :)
And, as I said, we've got other things going as well.
Making an actual business with actual profit is different than what everyone calls a "startup" these days. You don't have to work your ass off. You just have to serve a market which needs serving, and provide more value than you're charging. These are different skill sets than hunting down VC and viral growth. More useful, in the end, and with a higher rate of return for the many instead of a few.