[SandersAK]

I agree that the vast majority of VC is just a shitty index fund and crapshoot.

I do think that YC, from a Performance perspective is light years ahead of all the others that launched just after it did.

For me, the skill of PG was being relentlessly focused on the core of what made startups in that era super leveraged. That insight is obvious now but it wasn’t at the time. The essays did synthesize explicitly how and why startups work. No one else was taking such an extreme position: that you just needed to make Stuff people wanted and the rest would be viable.

Lots of VCs to this day still think there’s all this other shit you need. And if I’m being honest, some YC leaders have bought into that too.

I agree, like all white male founders and rich before and after PG, that 90% of it is extreme privilege and chance but that’s literally all of tech Wealth at the moment