This is a tough one because I've been there. I have worked for orgs that don't align with my values, but when you're in there you aren't thinking that you are contributing to the absolutely horrible crap they're doing. You just keep telling yourself, "I just do this one little thing." And that's enough to convince yourself that it's ok. You're keeping your values and morals intact.
Saying that, I'm sure if more of them had options they'd jump in a heartbeat.
Unlike chess or Go, where both players see the entire board, poker involves hidden information, your opponents’ hole cards. This makes it an incomplete-information game, which is far more complex mathematically. The AI must reason not only about what could happen, but also what might be hidden.
Even in 2-player No-Limit Hold’em, the number of possible game states is astronomically large — on the order of 10³¹ decision points. Because players can bet any amount (not just fixed options), this branching factor explodes far beyond games like chess.
Good poker requires bluffing and balancing ranges and deliberately playing suboptimally in the short term to stay unpredictable. This means an AI must learn probabilistic, non-deterministic strategies, not fixed rules. Plus, no facial cues or tells.
Humans adapt mid-game. If an AI never adjusts, a strong player could exploit it. If it does adapt, it risks being counter-exploited. Balancing this adaptivity is very difficult in uncertain environments.
As someone who started a company in my 30's and is considering another one in my 40's, my advice to you is that you just have to be more pragmatic. I have a wife, kids, mortgage, etc and I spend more time vetting the idea than I did in years past. I talk to more people about the idea to see if I'm onto something or if this is just an idea destined for failure. By spending a lot more time ensuring that the idea has legs I'm giving myself more data and also laying the groundwork if it is something worth pursuing. I would never quit my job unless I knew the startup could sustain my livelihood for at least one year.
So the short answer is that you can absolutely do this. It's about how you approach it and ensuring the people close to you are on board for the ride as well.
I find it interesting that the only reason the investors took any action was because of the attention this is getting in the press. As many have already read, Garg had a reputation for bad behavior yet SoftBank and his other investors let it play out leading up to their SPAC.