I would have liked the essay more if PG had actually engaged with AOC's claims. He just does some math and shows that exponential growth is fast.
What did the founder have to do to keep growing at 93%? Good solid business fundamentals and identifying a new solution can get you some growth. But eventually you've done all that and the only way to continue growing is extraction -- buy out your competition and raise margins, outsource your workers, enshittify your user experience. THAT is why no one "earns" a billion. The last $900M pretty much always requires using your resources in clever but unethical ways to extract money from customers and financial markets.
What did the founder have to do to keep growing at 93%? Good solid business fundamentals and identifying a new solution can get you some growth. But eventually you've done all that and the only way to continue growing is extraction -- buy out your competition and raise margins, outsource your workers, enshittify your user experience. THAT is why no one "earns" a billion. The last $900M pretty much always requires using your resources in clever but unethical ways to extract money from customers and financial markets.