Two important principles that have a lot in common: If you make users love you, investors will love you too. If the people lead, the leaders will f… - Paul Graham

If the key to becoming a billionaire is to exploit people, as some politicians claim, we at YC are idiots. We've spent the last 20 years choosing the wrong founders and teaching them the wrong things. Or maybe we do actually understand startups, and the politicians are wrong.

The answer (or at least the proximate cause) may be that the Europeans rode on the crest of a powerful new idea: allowing those who made a lot of money to keep it.

Implementing something doesn't guarantee that you understand it, but it's among the best evidence that you do.