While I agree with the general idea that there are more ways than wages to earn wealth, I think the advice is more general: focus on ownership. Figure out how to buy or create an asset and work on improving its value through your labor, capital, or other real (non-financial) forms of investment: time, attention, promotion, whatever. This advice is surprisingly general and has made a lot of fortunes. Think in terms of the business being an economic machine, and you as its tuner (devs will be surprisingly used to this view of things).
House flippers focus on ownership by buying a house, improving it, and then selling it.
Private equity acquires companies, "fixes" them, and then sells them, often back to the public markets.
Venture capital acquires promising stakes in young companies. They put in a lot of sweat equity in board meetings, advice, introductions, and follow-on fundraising to make their portfolios worth more.
Anyone who owns a house gets rich if their house appreciates. Especially if they use leverage.
You can do this all sorts of ways. Build vs. buy is an important dimension.
Where I disagree with JL is the general idea that investing heavily into a single company with high uncertainty and little control rights is a great idea. The main reason YC took off is largely Jessica in my opinion, marketing the program exceptionally well to talented people who knew no other way than to work for wages at a company. It worked great for them (the YC partners) because they became investors in 1000+ companies, so it's virtually certain that, given the caliber of people they're able to convince to apply, that they'll have a few billion dollar "hits". The situation of an individual employee with only one company's (startup's) stock is quite different, and in my opinion, much worse. So maybe not such great advice at face value.
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I have a slightly different take on this.
While I agree with the general idea that there are more ways than wages to earn wealth, I think the advice is more general: focus on ownership. Figure out how to buy or create an asset and work on improving its value through your labor, capital, or other real (non-financial) forms of investment: time, attention, promotion, whatever. This advice is surprisingly general and has made a lot of fortunes. Think in terms of the business being an economic machine, and you as its tuner (devs will be surprisingly used to this view of things).
House flippers focus on ownership by buying a house, improving it, and then selling it.
Private equity acquires companies, "fixes" them, and then sells them, often back to the public markets.
Venture capital acquires promising stakes in young companies. They put in a lot of sweat equity in board meetings, advice, introductions, and follow-on fundraising to make their portfolios worth more.
Anyone who owns a house gets rich if their house appreciates. Especially if they use leverage.
You can do this all sorts of ways. Build vs. buy is an important dimension.
Where I disagree with JL is the general idea that investing heavily into a single company with high uncertainty and little control rights is a great idea. The main reason YC took off is largely Jessica in my opinion, marketing the program exceptionally well to talented people who knew no other way than to work for wages at a company. It worked great for them (the YC partners) because they became investors in 1000+ companies, so it's virtually certain that, given the caliber of people they're able to convince to apply, that they'll have a few billion dollar "hits". The situation of an individual employee with only one company's (startup's) stock is quite different, and in my opinion, much worse. So maybe not such great advice at face value.