Is launching a startup that requires VC money for everyone?

I just read this this insightful article by Stephane Nasser, co-founder of OpenVC, that provides a reality check on the idea that creating VC-backed startups is a fully meritocratic way to generate wealth.

The bad news is that it isn’t, for many reasons. One of them is that it’s very hard for not-wealthy founders to financially afford the risk of failure.

A suggestion on how to deal with this issue is to, and I quote, “…build some level of personal wealth first, then only after a safety net is in place, go the VC route.”

To reach this goal, working for a big (tech) company for a few years could be a valuable and low-risk solution.

Of course, this is a good strategy that can de-risk the founder’s journey a little, but it highlights another challenge.

In many countries with small/emerging tech ecosystems, it is difficult in the first place to reach a decent level of personal wealth, and that makes venture capital even more “not for the poor”.

If local (tech) companies do not pay salaries that allow employees to build financial stability in just a few years (Hello Italy!), will those not-wealthy employees ever be able to take the risk of building a startup and raise VC money to scale it?

And what is the cost for the ecosystem in terms of lost opportunities?

Once people move to other ecosystems looking for better-paid jobs, what are the chances that they go back to the emerging one to launch a new startup?

When talking about the impact of venture money going into an (emerging) ecosystem, I believe this matter should be given great consideration.