HN user
I think he is somewhat right. I do not think you can go directly after large markets. Most successful companies have gone for small markets that then disrupted large markets. I'm (100M exits are not that great for the record!).
It is not. Because power is the ultimate drug in human society -- and only a finite amount of people can have it.
How much money did the founders make off of this?
You clearly don't understand VC or Private Equity very well. 15 mil is chump change for Sequoia. Sure they would rather not lose it but 43 million is not a "huge amount of cash" in the VC world. They probably just got back a 1x or 2x return and that is about it.
You guys don't really know him. He is humble ... you literally see him walking around campus grabbing lunch at Bytes cafe etc. I walked into his office once and chatted with him one or twice -- only recently found out he had made any money. Secondly, I don't know if preventing people from receiving exorbitant amounts of money they did nothing to earn is "screwing them" ... it might in fact be really good for them.