I suspect many people simply want to be seen as a "startup founder," much more than actually being one. They want to play "startup business" the same way young

I suspect many people simply want to be seen as a "startup founder," much more than actually being one. They want to play "startup business" the same way young children want to "play house." It is akin to Gen Z's obsession with becoming an influencer, just with more hoodies, misplaced Steve Jobs quotes, and awful Medium thinkpieces. The label is aspirational by design, and they buy into the whole culture, which explains why everyone thinks a startup has to be an all-or-nothing unicorn taking VC funding for a glorified CRUD app where they're just making up the requirements as they go while praying for product/market fit. In short, it's about status and pop culture, not solving the problems of real users. Which is a shame, cause actually solving problems for users is really, really interesting even if TechCrunch doesn't get excited about it.