It sure is and many do choose gold for this reason. It depends on how much risk you want to expose yourself to.

if an investor already has X% amount of their portfolio invested in gold, they might seek to diversify by investing in uncorrelated ventured such as startups. an investments idiosyncratic risk/reward is only meaningful in relation to other investments in the universe of choices the investor can make.

Hence why the potential upset of a business is so much higher. Risk vs. reward, as usual.