It's not a prerequisite for success. It's a prerequisite for raising an insane VC round. Plenty of profitable businesses take a different path and don't try to

It's not a prerequisite for success. It's a prerequisite for raising an insane VC round. Plenty of profitable businesses take a different path and don't try to be a Thielian monopoly. That's fine, it's not invalid as a business. But that's not what VCs are interested in investing in. The extremely high startu failure rate means they need enormous returns on the very few investments in their portfolio that actually work. Such huge returns imply a Thielian monopoly business.