I don't see a disdain for investing, I see a general disdain for the misaligned incentives between founders and investors which has been around SV for decades. It's been a heated topic of debate at least since Steve Jobs was kicked out of Apple and yet the VC industry keeps growing and growing.
Further removing people from the most important parts of life and entrusting those to a benevolent central authority is a risk I’d personally _not_ take. The lessons I learned from the most recent US presidential election is how grateful I am for separation of powers and limits on the scopes that any one person (or branch of government) can actually impose on my day-to-day life.
I’d prefer to not see UBI furloughed because two parties I’m not connected to would prefer to grandstand over a budgetary rounding error than solve problems.
The (unfortunate) reality is that for most people you either need a lot of savings or an investor to get a company off the ground [1]. I am skeptical that free education or a $10k/year UBI would change that.
[1] One notable exception is companies that can be started on the side, but UBI would not affect those very much, either.
It is the desire, hunger, and unmet needs that creates many startups.
What I don't understand is this dislike for investing ahead of growth or success. Why is the expectation that everything can be done bootstrapped or constantly profitable?
Companies take investment. If you're building a product that will be valuable for a long time, there will always be a period at the beginning where the entity requires somebody to put their investment into it. If the idea is small enough that one or two rich dudes with Google money can do forgo their salaries, that's great. But even a team of five for 18 months is a significant investment, and somebody needs to pony up. Should startups only consist of rich people who can afford to roll the dice?
Instead of fully rejecting the model, I believe that companies should take VC money with a finite plan towards profitability. If you take $2mil in seed money and hire a team of 8, get to $2m / year in revenue. If you want to take another bite at the apple, there will be VCs who fund you at that point. If not, you're not dead.
Real progress takes real investment. Ignoring that fact ignores a wild world of interesting, viable companies.