I'd like to offer a counterpoint to starting a billion dollar startup, instead of trying your best to be a billionaire - you can pursue multiple small bets that can pay you better than your current full time job. That way you don't have to sacrifice your interests for financial independence.
I spent the last 2 years working on a research heavy startup that I felt would change game development forever, it was hard from an engineering, research, marketing and sales standpoint.
Late into the second year I started to feel burnt out and decided instead to write a robotics textbook which got way more attention to both myself and my project in about 2 months worth of work than 2 years did. This then got me to take Twitter a bit more seriously in terms of making friends, peers that I can easily see turn into collaborators or customers in the future. Sort of an audience first approach as opposed to product first approach. Tools like Twitter, Medium and Substack make this approach a lot more feasible today.
I even remember having a sort of disdain for freelancing because I thought it didn't scale whereas if I did pursue it more seriously I'd imagine I'd have had more direct solo enterprise sales experience, met more clients, figured out what their problems were and solving them instead of imagining an ideal where game developers would solve their problems like I wanted them to. Seeing my savings decrease every month took a mental toll on me, I figured there would be a light at the end of the tunnel and I essentially feel like I miscalibrated my goals. Instead of trying to build a billion dollar startup, I should have spent more time figuring out how to never need a job ever again.
The benefits of the multiple small bets approach is that when you're wrong it doesn't cost you 2 years of your life, you're less fragile to sudden decreases in income from one small bet, you don't have a boss, pandemics don't affect you, you choose your peers and hours etc.. Making your first few dollars online (not from a paycheck) changes you, makes a you a lot better at pursuing opportunities when they happen.
After COVID hit I started looking for a job again and my interviewing experience was very interesting to say the least. I described very honestly my failures and startups loved my story and appreciated my openness - bigger companies on the other hand essentially told me that well your startup didn't work out so you must be lazy and dumb. The outcome is what determines if I'm a good founder or not but it was really painful being lectured by people who had never taken a risk in their lives.
I see so many founders dreaming of huge companies going towards IPO when I can see solo founder companies being a lot happier if they pursued multiple small bets instead. You can't hedge your life over multiple billion dollar startups with a 1% chance of working out but you can certainly hedge it over multiple small bets each with a 10-30% chance of success. What's good for the aggregate or society isn't necessarily what is best for you.