> I think there are actually very few people who would take such a risk, even though I think it's a necessary risk if you want to be part of "huge, if true."
I beg to differ - we will never know the number of people who take such risks due to survivorship bias. I have a hunch that a lot of people through the ages took risks that never paid off and they never got famous, instead, they bankrupted themselves, got committed into asylums or lived their days in anonymity. No one writes biographies about them, if they did, no one would want to read them.
> dare to spend years of your life grinding away (in relative isolation) on something that seems crazy, with no guarantee of any success, but full of promise.
If I were to come up with a VC creed, it would probably be very close to this. Distill it down to concise Latin and you got yourself a bona fide VC Firm motto.
I think there are actually very few people who would take such a risk, even though I think it's a necessary risk if you want to be part of "huge, if true."