You should never take a risk, business people are all evil and stupid, you should treat every employment or business opportunity as purely transactional because they'll do the same to you, there's nothing you can do about your job or employment, the only way to win is to cheat because everyone else is doing it, the key to happiness is educating other there's not really any cause and effect involved in the way things work unless you, personally, already know it. Just, you shouldn't do anything unless you understand everything about it, and if you don't it's not your fault.
> not flailing around is very difficult and unlikely
This is literally the defining trait of startups. What makes it stupid is that it's always more complicated than "engineer guy did everything he could but got screwed in the end" and that in real life, sometimes people do actually make money or establish businesses because of decisions they made, and conversely that there are real causes and effects behind things that don't go the way you want them to. Telling a story that doesn't contradict in anyway with consensus (so, directionally correct but always wrong) opinion has no point in the same way that there is no point telling a story where a knight rescues a princess by journeying through the kingdom making friends and overcoming challenges, then confronts the evil guy and kills him, the end. This is just that, but "the shady business guy and the screwed engineers"