Next time ask them to choose between: 1) The very slim possibility of making a contribution to society as profound as Isaac Newton's, but leading such a harried life that they died before the age of 50 from a stress-related illness. 2) The pretty good chance that you can lead a fairly good, fairly happy, fairly content, but generally unremakable life.

yes, your modification is a lot more realistic.

I don't if that is a Valley thing though. Many people, particularly intellectuals would choose the first. However, let's be honest how many of those Valley startups are on a path to contribute anything remotely close to that level, even if they were maximally successful? Many of them are like "We're changing the way people sell houses" or "We are disrupting the auto-insurance industry" and that's fine but it's hardly the stuff of Newton or Leibniz.

So if you take different point from the article, it may make sense to attempt to achieve whatever your goal is another way than slaving away for 3 years on some "Growth Hacker" startup that goes nowhere, because, again, it's not going to get books written about you 200 years from now. Or not.

Not me. Let someone else be the hero.

How old were the people you asked? I think this may the important factor.

You didn't really ask them to make a choice, though. You gave them an opportunity to signal courage and self-sacrifice and probably some other things.