My pessimism in startups is how much its been gamified. Ycombinator has essentially created a class of people who are now chasing their achievements (unicorn status, Series A, B, C etc...) and the startup is only a means to that end.
This leads to a rat race by which instead of making the best product to solve the problem they originally intended, they try to market their company as best as possible to VCs.
The idea was always build something impactful and make it as profitable as possible via fulfilling your company's mission. You can see the ramifications already in the last 2-3 rounds of startups, all of them looking for easy money "uber for X" "AI for Y"...
This leads to a rat race by which instead of making the best product to solve the problem they originally intended, they try to market their company as best as possible to VCs.
The idea was always build something impactful and make it as profitable as possible via fulfilling your company's mission. You can see the ramifications already in the last 2-3 rounds of startups, all of them looking for easy money "uber for X" "AI for Y"...