What he's really doing is answering the question "how can I come up with startup ideas?", which has always been asked of him and the other YC partners frequently.
And his answer is: you shouldn't try to come up with startup ideas; that's not how it works. Instead you should just notice if/when they appear before you.
He's clearly not claiming to be doing what the author is accusing him of trying to do. He's just explaining something he'd noticed after (at that time) 7 years of funding/advising some of the most successful startups.
(That said, later in the essay he goes on to offer actionable recipes for formulating startup ideas anyway).
In answer to your question: you can take his advice, or not, to stop trying to confect startup ideas, and instead just pay attention to the opportunities you notice from your own experience.
You can't use the criterion: if it is insightful it has to be actionable on an insight that says "I have no actions for you".
The difference is, it is not trying to trick you.
During my career I did freelance mobile app and web development for about 10 years.
In that time I came across many people who wanted to found a tech startup because "that's where the money is" and being a tech startup founder being a status symbol. Some enthusiastic youngsters, but mostly people who had a successful non-tech small business. And they were not the right sort of person and did not have the right hunches, they didn't use what they learned from their non-tech business, but instead sat down over a beer with friends to brainstorm "social-local-viral" app ideas.
The advice instead should be that if you are struggling to come up with startup ideas, you probably aren't the right sort of person at this time. You should do something entirely different for a while until you find a product that just has to exist.
Unfortunately, they had never read HN or PG, nor could I do more than politely refuse their business.