I think that's wrong, though. Through 2010 or so (very roughly) there was still a ton of unmined valued in straightforward applications of technology. I mean,

I think that's wrong, though. Through 2010 or so (very roughly) there was still a ton of unmined valued in straightforward applications of technology. I mean, sure, stuff goes wrong and there are bad aspects of culture, but looking at the industry through the Web 2.0 period it was really easy to convince yourself that this was all a Net Good Thing and making the world a better place (and that's true of Airbnb too!). It's just not as true now. That fruit has been picked. There are still product ideas but they're about exploiting edges of an industry that has real problems, and not about fixing them. I mean, whether the desire is there or not, the YC model isn't going to fix the climate crisis, or the disaster that the media ecosystem has become, or the increasingly dire level of income inequality in our society. And getting to my original point: pg's recent writings seem like he's made peace with that and is happy just chipping out new corners of the tech ecosystem and not Solving Problems People Have.