> I was a software engineer who learned to start a company right off the pages of the site you're looking at right now, Hacker News. It was here where I learned to start a startup.

Keep in mind that if you look back on the things that made you excited to go into startups into 2006 or whenever, probably none of them are true anymore. E.g. the main reason people were excited back then is that there was a huge arbitrage opportunity to take every business that already existed as either brick-and-mortar or web 1.0, and reimagine it using AJAX and web 2.0 design language. In retrospect there were a bunch of other favorable macro trends coalescing at the same time also, but regardless none of these arbitrage opportunities exist any longer.

> Where else can you, with just your hands and a laptop on the Internet, create something a billion people use?

Serious question: how many software companies have something that a billion people have used?

It's a pretty special industry, for sure. But the odds of it happening are basically zero. I see how selling the dream makes for a good story for young and hungry startup founders to passionately change the world and (cynically) end up as a failed bet in someone else's portfolio.

But it's a bit disingenuous to make it sound like it's commonplace.

> Where else can you, with just your hands and a laptop on the Internet, create something a billion people use?

At the large tech companies, with a lot less risk and higher salaries.

> Where else can you, with just your hands and a laptop on the Internet, create something a billion people use?

At companies that already have a billion users?

No disrespect but I think what the people use the product for should be mentioned ... in addition to the number of people using the product. The world has a lot of problems right now. I know there’s some VC in those areas but, well, look at what we talk about.

Touch 20 lives as a teacher and enrich those individuals, or 20 million lives by helping them order groceries over the internet.