The usual equation for startups is "This has a small chance to change the world." Fiddling around with the non-world-changing outcomes is premature optimization, since the best exits come from failing to change the world and merely creating a viable business (look at Paypal; they wanted to upend the world's financial system, and instead they had a billion-plus exit facilitating Beanie Baby trades).
The median is more representative of what a founder's expected financial return is, but many folks aren't optimizing for that. If they are, you need to look at the off-balance-sheet asset: the six-figure job offer from Google, FB, MS, Yahoo, etc. etc. etc. that is generally available to people of the viable startup-starting caliber.
Since the mean startup return is so driven by a small number of massively successful outliers, it makes economic sense that the median outcome will not look so great. (If startups presented a good chance of being as good as the next best option, plus a small chance of F-U money, nobody would work anywhere else.)
The median is more representative of what a founder's expected financial return is, but many folks aren't optimizing for that. If they are, you need to look at the off-balance-sheet asset: the six-figure job offer from Google, FB, MS, Yahoo, etc. etc. etc. that is generally available to people of the viable startup-starting caliber.
Since the mean startup return is so driven by a small number of massively successful outliers, it makes economic sense that the median outcome will not look so great. (If startups presented a good chance of being as good as the next best option, plus a small chance of F-U money, nobody would work anywhere else.)