I think the following LinkedIn article by Charles J Phua is quite enlightening about startup culture:
Most of the startups will fail within their first few years. Several sources say 9 out of 10, and this statistics only includes those that have reached the stage where they were noticed enough to be included in these statistics, thus excluding all those people who worked for months on an idea (and maybe launched their business without even being noticed.) Ouch.
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I’d like to first summarize in one sentence the main reason why the majority of startups fail despite being aware of the appropriate methodology out there:
Most Startups Do Only What They Enjoy To Do OR Doing What They Think Other Big Startups Are Doing.
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Before engaging in a startup dream and spending a huge amount of time and money (and making others do it) you need to be aware of what you are to expect and to be ready to tackle the challenges mentioned above.
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Optimism per se is naive, but it can be justified if a dedicated team masters all the core competencies and decides to tackle the issues mentioned above, thus becoming part of an exclusive club, which is just as small as the number of startups that achieve success.
It does seem to be tremendously difficult to create a successful tech startup. Do you think you have what it takes do pull that off? Is there anything that can truly prepare people for being actually ready?