This whole subject is very annoying coming from a wealthy capitalist of this type.
If PG thinks we weren’t meant to live this way, I’d like to see him out there fighting for universal housing, universal healthcare, universal education including no-tuition college, higher tax rates for billionaires and upcoming trillionaires, abolishing excessive wealth (e.g., we should tax all wealth and assets over $999 million 100% and/or force employee/community ownership of company shares of excessively wealthy individuals), abolishing for-profit prison labor, etc.
If you think this is extreme I would like you to explain how one person being a millionaire 300 times like Paul Graham is isn’t extreme. And then you realize that Elon Musk is as wealthy as 1000+ Paul Grahams.
I don't need to hear another VC giving a management seminar about how unnatural modern work is. I’d like to see them start changing people’s lives for the better, maybe they could start by advocating for the basic needs of the poorest people in our society or something like that.
The goal is to encourage people to join ycombinator, not advocate for a healthier world.
Ironically [1], a lot of ycombinator founders would set themselves up for a lot more financial independence, work life balance, and personal freedom if they skipped the low success rate founder’s grind and just joined stable large companies with good stock award plans and focused on FIRE.
[1] or maybe that’s not the right term