I never said you were unqualified to give advice, and I wasn't trying to insult you for your startup's failure (of course failure is a part of risk). My original point was that risk-averse people probably won't have successful startups, and I didn't understand why you would hold up your failed startup up as evidence to the contrary.

Here's another bold opinion: if some jackass like me can persuade him not to do a startup by pointing out that startups aren't for the risk-averse, then he probably shouldn't be doing a startup.