That article is wordy and hard as hell to parse. I wish the author would just speak plainly. What's he mean anyways? 'The entrepreneurs are the new labor'
I share that sentiment. I read the first page, and thought "Shit, this guy just used a whole page full of words and hasn't expressed a coherent argument yet". I quit reading at that point. Life is too short.
A proper analogy which i have shared with my smart friends for reading articles of a wordy nature, including said article, is best understood by reflecting on the late 19th century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who besides being a prototype of current wordy article authors also articulated an interesting theory of good and evil, and who said that which does not kill us makes us stronger.
Let me give it a try. Venkat is brilliant but he doesn't hold back from using hard-to-catch metaphors and $5 words.
There's a cartoon from Hugh MacLeod that shows the corporate pyramid with three layers: Sociopaths at the top, Clueless in the middle, and Losers at the bottom. Venkat has done one hash-out of this on his blog; I've done another with a slightly different approach. Let's talk about what these tiers are.
Sociopaths are strategic and dedicated but not subordinate. They work hard, will make things happen that most of society thinks "shouldn't", and they get rich or famous when what they build advances human life. However, most of them are also egotistical assholes. Steve Jobs is the uber-Sociopath. In general, they love risk, because they view low social status and mediocrity as indistinguishable from death (and therefore favor high-risk lifestyles). Many of them aren't Sociopaths. I'm probably closest to this of the 3 tiers (although I mix them up).
Losers are not undesirable or unpopular people. They're losing in an expected-value sense. They disfavor changes (in management, location, jobs) and tend to sell off their upside in exchange for risk-reduction. That's the insurance trade of modern employment. They're subordinate and strategic (they know what's worth working on, but will also subordinate on a dead-end project if it keeps them comfortable) but not dedicated. At 5:01, they're gone.
Eventually, the company is no longer defined by economic competition to excel on the market, but by political competition to capture the rents of a smooth-running machine. You get a caste of entitled, lazy executives who replace the old entrepreneurs. Then, the symbiosis between risk-seeking Sociopaths and risk-averse Losers dies out. The executives negotiate worse terms for Losers (lowered risk reduction, fast-firing) and use their superior social polish to push out the "good Sociopath" entrepreneurs who started the thing.
When this happens, Sociopaths need a ready supply of rubber gloves to use for their dirty work and then discard, because they're no longer holding up their end of the trade with the risk-averse Losers. They carve out a contingent of eager upper-tier Losers and failed-to-become-executive lower-tier Sociopaths and forge the Clueless. Clueless are dedicated and subordinate but not strategic. They often have no idea what's worth working on, or what's happening at the big picture.
Clueless are the middle-management buffer class. Since they work the hardest (to clean up messes left by disengaged Losers and malignant Sociopaths) they often end up propping up the Effort Thermocline, which is the level at which jobs become easier (a switch-over from pay-for-work to executive rent-seeking) rather than harder with increasing rank.
By the way, how do you get someone to be subordinate, strategic and dedicated? That only happens in a true mentor/protege relationship where the mentor is fully trusted to deliver a great career to the protege. That existed in guild cultures but it's never found in modern employment.
VC-istan, with the collusive and illegal reputation economy driven by comparing-of-notes and co-funding, is the first postmodern corporate organization. The Effort Thermocline exists between companies. It's fucking brilliant! The Sociopaths are the true executives (VCs, tech press, "popular kids") and these "startups" are all-Clueless endeavors. If you haven't figured it out, "lean startup" is code for "no Losers".
Obviously, this contention (that VC-funded "entrepreneurs" are out-of-work PMs parlaying backers' money into acq-hires and fast promotions) is controversial so he spends a lot of verbiage backing it up.
