I took this to be the general "emperor has no clothes" (perhaps contrarian is a better phrase) thread, but if this is supposed to be the Microsoft-isn't-dead thread, then I'll delete my comment.
It seems the entire argument could be summed up as follows:
PG focuses simply on product development I focus on product development with obvious monetization, which for some reason I call 'marketing.' If you have a product which cannot obviously be monetizatized, you should not quit your day job. Therefore, PG is 'hurting the children' by encouraging people to spend time developing products which may not be easily monetized.
An even more concise summary:
Don't put any effort into anything unless you are sure you can make money off of it. Altruism is stupid. PG believes in altruistic behavior, therefore he is stupid.
Altruism is stupid. PG believes in altruistic behavior, therefore he is stupid.
Not sure you've come to the correct conclusion in your analysis.
Graham has defined YC as "a hack to make money". Elsewhere in YC's site (it used to be on the FAQ) it talks about being benevolent, but "not a charity".
So, yes, any investor is looking to make a profit.
And so, you do need to think about whether or not your product can be profitable (even YC's application asks this question).
'Profit' is usually defined as pecuniary benefit. PG has stated elsewhere that he is not particularly concerned about this.
In my charitable estimation, PG's "Not a charity" statement means that YC is not in the business of giving out financial handouts. It does not mean that PG's first or only motive is pecuniary benefit.
We live in a culture defined by the worship of the Almighty dollar. If PG is at least hinting in a different direction, I'd say that's a good thing.
Our main priority at this stage is not to make the most money possible, but to show hackers that starting startups works. The best way to do that is by example.
We're hoping that 5 or 10 years from now, it will be a normal thing for the most ambitious hackers to start startups instead of going to work for big companies. We think that will make hackerdom as a whole dramatically more productive.
If that comes to pass and we were among the leading agents of the change, it seems reasonable that we might make a lot of money from it. But we don't have any idea how much.
In the short term we have to make at least enough to cover our expenses, because otherwise we'd run out of money and have to stop doing this.
Just to clarify, I was not criticizing Graham in general. I was only calling him out on his "Microsoft is Dead" article. The grand majority of his work is excellent (which is why "Microsoft is Dead" stood out so much).
