[bfe]

Great essay, though I don't think it's precise in how it characterizes pg's status as a serial entrepreneur.

There's no doubt YC is a second startup, but it's still sort of a unique case or meta-startup that serves pg's prior stated interest, as quoted in the essay, in not fully facing the risks and schleps of a normal startup. I believe I remember pg writing somewhere that he didn't want to repeat the giant risk of a normal startup, and he saw YC as a way of taking a diversified portfolio approach to startup involvement, of smoothing out the risk (and schleps) of a startup.

So, I don't think the essay is precise in simply characterizing pg as saying he shied away from doing another startup until he changed his mind and did one anyway. Instead, he came up with a kind of startup that he could get into that didn't require changing his mind about his approach. (At least, that's how I understood it.)