It strikes me as rather pretentious for someone to think that the 'stream of people that are interested in ideas and make new stuff' is thin

You could probably rephrase that into the 'stream of people that are interested in ideas and make new stuff and then actually do something about it' is thin.

And you could retort "because of systemic unfairness in the US" since being able to do something about your ideas requires free time, money, etc. which many people just don't have rather than any intrinsic holy goodness in "founders".

> And you could retort "because of systemic unfairness in the US"

One could retort that nice conspiracy theory to almost everything, and some people actually specialize into it. Now the thing is, having some constraints is a great way to get aware of a problem and try to solve it. This of course doesn't fit well with the whining mentality that some groups try to implant onto other for their own benefits.

> One could retort that nice conspiracy theory to almost everything

In what sense is it a conspiracy theory? Look at what COVID-19 is already highlighting over there where people can't get tested[1], get no help for being unable to work, etc.

[1] Unless, of course, you're a baseball team and then you can get instantly tested.

Another could retort that systemic inequality, the economic and financial "game" being rigged, is not a conspiracy theory; it's not even a conspiracy - that's why it's called "systemic", behavior exhibited by a system, not necessarily by intentional collaboration of individuals (though that clearly happens also).

To that a counter-retort may say, even if we acknowledge the "systemic unfairness" in the US, the country is leading the world as far as entrepreneurship and startups go.

As Mr Graham states, most arguments are about the differences in the meaning and definition of words.

Your meaning of "being interested in ideas" and specially "stuff" is different to Graham's.

This is not a surprise because both "idea" and "stuff" are just generic placeholders in which you can enter whatever you want.

I see that a lot when I write or speak to a big group of people. No matter what I say somebody somewhere interprets it in the worst possible way I could barely imagine myself.

How is it at all pretentious. It’s a statement of fact. Most people are not interested in innovating. Most entrepreneurs in the US are merely operating a small business in a well-defined market (restaurants, construction , car repair etc).

There is a very small group of people that are thinking about these ideas at a higher level with enough conviction that they will act on it.

It is pretentious because being an entrepreneur who is interested in innovation is not the only way to be interested in ideas and making new things. It is placing this one kind of human endeavor on a pedestal above the myriad others. Which is pretentious!

Meh, people who create things are always going to be a subset of the population because it just takes more effort than the ring below it. And in my experience, it's definitely a thin stream.

For all sorts of reasons, no doubt, but that's what it is. I didn't even meet another developer in the wild who actually liked building things on his own until I was in my late 20s and we became co-founders. And I went to a large public university with a good comp sci department.

Not everyone is going to be a creator. Not sure what is so controversial about this. Getting hostile over the word "thin" seems a bit silly since it's also completely unquantified. And I wonder what your life circumstance is if you're encountering more of a "thick" stream. Are you a hackathon event planner or something?

Is it hostile to call an attitude pretentious? I don't think it is... Some attitudes are pretentious.

What is pretentious about the quote that started this thread is the apparent belief that the kinds of people that do the things we talk about and admire on this site - building new kinds of software, starting growth-focused companies - are the only people "that are interested in ideas and making new stuff". I agree that there is a fairly thin stream of the building-software / starting-companies hackers that you're thinking of, but I see huge numbers of people from all walks of life being interested in ideas and creating things. Artists, writers, journalists, directors, bureaucrats, other types of business people, on and on and on. I think it is pretentious to look down our noses at pursuits that are not our own, that's all.

Your comment about hackathon event planning is illustrative: hackathons are honestly not at all where I would go to find the highest concentration of people creating interesting new things.

Angels on a pinhead, anyone?

It is pretentious because it asserts that PG's chosen method of creatig (startups) is not only better than any other equally creative, beneficial endeavors, like science, math, medicine, engineering, art, philosophy, teaching, ..., but is in fact the only path of innovation and making new things.

People mostly aren't interested enough to actually learn how to tackle those problems nor resourceful enough to act on that learning.

Ideas are cheap. That long-nursed startup idea you've had has been tried a half-dozen times and discarded even more.

It's quite thin. I grew up surrounded by such people, but after college out in the real world I discovered that the number of people who were truly curious about the world was around 10%. Even more surprising to me: The percentage wasn't very much higher for people who had PhDs.

It really is that thin. I'm sure he's talking about new stuff that you can't find by googling.