Out of 6,500 companies YC funded companies, less than 0.40% amounted to anything. Do you really want to apply to YC with these success rate? The issue is that these 30 billionaires PG decided to highlight, none of their 14 companies, from which less than half are even profitable right now...are relevant at all. No civilization level breakthroughs, they are mostly payment layers, delivery apps, marketplaces, crypto exchanges, and labor or regulatory arbitrage, and attention platforms.

If Airbnb, DoorDash, Instacart, Coinbase, Reddit, Brex, Deel, or Flexport disappeared tomorrow, humanity would not lose a vaccine, a new energy source, a scientific discovery, or a cure for disease. We would mostly switch apps.

Only depressing aspect is pretending jackpot level, private wealth, equals meaningful progress. There is a reason not once, he used the word entrepreneur in the essay...