My sentiments run towards agreeing with the first comment in this thread. I'm not going to begrudge anyone for using their talent in any way they see fit, but the article on Medium seems to not only be written for approval of HN, but glosses over the fact that there are a lot of pointless startups. There are some amazing startups out there that are changing the world, working on problems that the world outside of the tech bubble needs solving - clean water, higher education, transportation that doesn't chew up fossil fuels - but for every one of those, there are indeed 50 startups that focus on trivial things (to-do apps, mail apps, photo apps, weather apps, really? Really?). I know everyone can't work on curing cancer or world peace, but if there is a backlash from within, it stems from founders who act as apologists for the more banal of startup ideas.