Thanks, I think you're partly right, re-writing the analogy that way does make it seem more reasonable to me. (I still think it's a bad analogy) But there were other parts of the essay I wondered about... the "Daddy model of wealth", the historical time periods and "whether you could accumulate a fortune by creating wealth has been turned on and off" ... These are ideas (like PG's about oil painting being like Lisp hacking) I just do not feel qualified to judge - they are interesting, for sure, but I can't know if they are accurate or reasonable. So I hoped someone else could point me in the right direction.
