We did not get "beat with our own playbook". The Trump that won in November was the same product launched on that golden escalator the previous year, so much so that political pundits faulted him for it in the run-up to the election. He didn't iterate. He didn't test his message carefully. He barely even won --- he lost the popular vote by a greater margin than any candidate in US history.

But nobody who reads that article will realize that. They'll imagine instead a dynamo who "seized the playbook" of Silicon Valley and used it to cruise to an Silicon Valley-style 10-bagger victory.

You should refuse to comment on articles like these. You have no special insight into why or how Trump won. You chose to be the CEO of Y Combinator. You can't ask for our sympathy when your words, freely given to the newspaper of record, have an impact you didn't intend.