Remember that a startup isn't a small business. Your venture backers want you to be hungry -- financial stability for you lowers the probability of a 50x exit!
This is the biggest mistake that I see startups make. Startups ARE small businesses, they are just supposed to be growing faster than "normal" small businesses. But many people make the mistake of not being a "small" business as a startup, and then they realize that they have no idea what to do when they have a medium size business on their hands (or never create any business at all in spite of products).
Avoid venture backers until you can't - entrepreneurs existed before venture capital, and exist outside of it as well. Venture should fund growth, but not inception.
From what I have seen, yes. Stable = complacent and comfortable in their mind.
On the brink = Will work 100 hrs a week and must succeed to survive.
Makes sense from that narrow perspective, but I think that only works in cases where hustle is the majority of the work. Come to think of it, the majority of investors are only interested in problems which are fairly low tech but require a lot of marketing/hustle.
