Yes, but anyone that knows the author and his business should also know that his post isn't addressed to those looking to make nice profitable businesses. The author has a very specific audience of people seeking funding and wanting to build large companies. His post appropriately addresses them; it isn't written that much for people whose ultimate motivation is to build a self-sufficient profitable million dollar business.
Building a billion dollar enterprise is not the normal outcome for most founders. It is the "odd" scenario.
Being successful at building the billion dollar business is the odd scenario in this case; attempting to build it is the norm. That most fail is just proof of how hard it is.
First, every "large" company was once a "small" company. You don't get to $100 million in revenue without first getting to $1 million in revenue. Focusing on the former milestone before the latter is silly.
Second, while I respect your point, it's important to look at actions, not words. Early-stage investors in Silicon Valley talk a lot about the type of businesses they want to fund, but spend half an hour browsing Crunchbase, AngelList, etc. A ton of the companies with seed funding (perhaps the majority) have very little chance of growing into the types of businesses their investors say they're looking to be involved with.
Finally, in response to your edit that attempting to build billion-dollar businesses is the norm: you can only come to such a belief if you have firmly ensconced yourself in the Silicon Valley startup scene. Countless new businesses are formed around the country each year and the people who create them, most of whom don't have billion-dollar delusions, are just as much "founders" as the broke 20-something making the rounds on Sand Hill Road.
Just because a company has billion dollar ambitions does not mean it isn't focused on the first million dollars. What remains true is that the first million can be just as hard(if not harder) as the other big jumps.
It is easy to play armchair VC and think we know what will and won't turn into a billion dollar business. If you have seen the Bessemer anti-portfolio, even Apple, Google and Intel were far from no-brainer investments(http://www.bvp.com/portfolio/antiportfolio).
So what matters is not so much that AngelList is full of companies that will never be billion dollar businesses. What matters is that among those companies are billion dollar companies and every investment represents a bet by a group of folks.
Investors have the luxury of spraying and praying because they primarily invest capital; founders, whose investment consists of time and opportunity cost, don't have this luxury. In simple terms, your investors have n lottery tickets, and you have one.
Statistically, as a founder, you are not likely to build a billion dollar business. That is worth repeating, often. Pretending that your odds are better than they really are and working yourself into the ground because Silicon Valley culture has convinced you that it's the only way is foolish.
Which leads to my final point: if you're an entrepreneur, it's worth thinking long and hard about the path you take. If you're convinced that your ambitions should be measured in 9 and 10 figures and you are enticed by the funding game, you're often not just unnecessarily sacrificing your quality of life, you may be sacrificing the potential to build a successful 7 or 8 figure business.
You misunderstood me. I never said shooting for billion dollar businesses is the norm across the country but rather in the context of startups, particularly those that YC is most interested in funding.
I'm not debating or necessarily even disagree with what you are saying about founders and their chances of success. But that is not what we are debating here.
The primary debate here is whether Sam Altman's post to his audience makes the right point about his message. I think it does.
Personally, I find it hard to believe that every YCombinator-backed founder believes he's chasing a billion-dollar opportunity, but maybe I'm delusional.
Its a bad strategy for your life, tho
The 'tortured artist' is a romantic notion
It's that meme that is being co-opted by VCs here
The 'entrepreneur as tortured artiste'
Since the 'starving artist' basically sums up
the ideal sucker for a major label record deal
(ie, weak negotiating leverage)
Its worth being critical of over-adopting the analogy.
(at least, if your the starving artist).
That being said, nothing clears the mind
like no food on the plate.
And a clear mind is what you need to succeed.
Starting with the exceptions, and not the rule, can lead to distorted perceptions. Building a billion dollar enterprise is not the normal outcome for most founders. It is the "odd" scenario.
There's nothing wrong with modeling your entrepreneurial journey after those of billion-dollar founders, but the "go big or go home" path is not the only option for entrepreneurs starting a business.
It is entirely possible to start a multi-million dollar business and still have a life, and I'd encourage more entrepreneurs to talk to self-employed millionaires (there are a lot of them) than read Forbes articles about tech's most visible billionaires.