> Slow down there. You can't just take the converse of any old statement.

This is in the context of a hypothetical universe where "the only way left to get rich is to start startups." In that universe, PG asserts that the driven will do well, thereby creating inequality. Since we know inequality exists, some will have done less well, and "determination is the main factor in the success of a startup."

To go back to what you said earlier, this isn't directly relevant to real world inequality. But the essay posits this hypothetical world as a parabolic justification for economic inequality. The essay acknowledges that "few successful founders grew up desperately poor" but refuses to engage in any discussion of why. It will only examine a simplified universe, which allows the author to make implications about the real world and then hand wave any reactions away when others engage with those implications.

If you think it was a justification of inequality then you are reading it wrong. His argument is that there are good things which inherently produce inequality, so it is too non specific of a target. We're better off attacking rent seeking and poverty than inequality as a whole.