It's a nice mini soap opera but the core is that actually they agree but have a different definition of "rich kids".
- The income gap is growing, creating many more levels of wealth, each considerably richer/poorer than the next.
- A lot of wealth is kinda in the background, like the real estate someone's parents might have that isn't discussed, but will probably be inherited someday?
- Products and services cater to the different wealth tiers and create separation and filter bubbles.
This results in very weathy people innocently betraying their ignorance in various public statements, like
https://www.samefacts.com/2012/01/everything-else/mitt-romne...
https://www.wbur.org/onlyagame/2016/11/18/steve-young-usfl-4...
PG is saying you don't have to be rich to launch a successful startup. By this, I believe he means private-school, summer-house, frequent-flyer-miles-in-your-early-20s rich. I would contend this is at least 90th-percentile rich for US households.
His critics suggested he be sensitive to those who literally have no safety net, and could not move back in with their parents if it all came crashing down—I would contend this is at most 40th-percentile "rich" for US households.
Can we cut the guy some slack and let him speak to the 50+% of people in the middle? Honestly, that's undoubtedly where the bulk of his target audience resides—people who'd like to launch a startup but worry that they're not sufficiently privileged to do it.
The example given literally attended one of the top private art school in the world. The reason people are reacting is likely because of this often damaging non-differentiation of being temporarily and perpetually poor. Many people can't even afford to move to a city these days, let alone start a startup. And if they do it might have negative consequences for years and years.
Or get pushed further away, as the middle class can't even afford it and they too have to move outwards, and have to commute in.