“Indeed, the biggest danger of consulting may be that it gives you an excuse for failure. In a startup, as in grad school, a lot of what ends up driving you are the expectations of your family and friends. Once you start a startup and tell everyone that’s what you’re doing, you’re now on a path labelled “get rich or bust.” You now have to get rich, or you’ve failed.

Fear of failure is an extraordinarily powerful force. Usually it prevents people from starting things, but once you publish some definite ambition, it switches directions and starts working in your favor. I think it’s a pretty clever piece of jiujitsu to set this irresistible force against the slightly less immovable object of becoming rich. You won’t have it driving you if your stated ambition is merely to start a consulting company that you will one day morph into a startup.”

— Paul Graham