I've been reading these blogs about working startups and hit this poker metaphor so many times i got sick of it.<p>I have worked with startups since year 2001 and have been involved both directly - as in putting my ass(ets) on the line - and indirectly as a team member in other people's startups. In all this time obsessing over tactics, strategy, recipes, advice of the ones that made it and so on, "obsessing" in general killed half of the experience.<p>I don't like this poker metaphor. It involves rooms full of smoke and sleep deprivation. It involves poker faces and bluffing strategies. It also involves obsession. All these make starting your own thing less fun than sticking with the cubicle you had before, and i think this hurts the point of doing it anyway.<p>I believe a better metaphor about startup success is the lottery simply because it is way more random than any strategy can defeat.