It's the dark side of the cult of entrepreneurship built into the reaganite American Dream.

If the path to happiness is material success, and the path to material success is entrepreneurship, anything that looks like a shortcut to entrepreneurial success must be Good.

I mean, even here on HN there are plenty of people who put money into startups that predictably died - often not very different from thinly-veiled scams to provide founders with income. And let's not even get into cryptocurrencies...