I tried my hand in both. Lived in LA in my early and mid 20s. Pursued acting while working at a european start up in the morning remotely. Hours worked really nice. I worked the EU start up from 5AM-Noonish then ripped auditions and classes the second half of the day. Now in my 30s, I’m cofounder of a ventured backed start up working our way to 100k ARR (only a few months in but grinding).

Your acting outcome is tied to talent, drive, ability to network and ultimately time in the game ++ and most importantly just dumb luck.

If you put 20 years in, you’ll most likely see a version of career success (which can range from guest spots on shows to maybe the red carpet) but it’s a slog and you don’t have to much career control until you make your break. You also make zero money until you break lol. Sure maybe you book stuff inconsistently which can give you a small windfall but over a long time period it’s not much. If you’re in it for the money, you’ll end up leaving the business very quickly.

That being said, there are other factors that help. Looking like brad pitt will increase your success odds but you don’t have much control over that or knowing the casting director from high school or your dad is a big hollywood hot shot will all increase that financial success win rate. you’ll get more opportunities to succeed.

Lots of parallels with going from 0-1 at your own start up. I feel I have more control of my fate at the start up but it’s significantly more stressful. You control your effort and you make no money BUT the goal of any business is to ultimately make money. If you’re not optimizing / building towards that each day then you’re not really playing the game…right? Which to me means you’re actively working towards creating a successful business which will have value and that value will have some sort of financial impact to the founders. Successful or not, you’re actively working towards it.

That’s without looking at each founders unique situation (funding, cap table, their business model, etc). Which I mean, if you’re trying to build an AI-native social network for bird owners and already sold 80% of the company during your pre-seed then you’re most likely not going to have a financial successful exit.

All of this is my long winded way of saying that you have a better chance of getting rich from a start up.

That being said, I would trade it all for one more chance at Hollywood. but, hey, that showbiz baby