If you're right, clearly Larry/Sergei, elon musk, Steve Wozniak, etc have no place in start ups... I think you picked a controversial statement that's easy to poke holes in
Take a look at the technologies that were used to bootstrap all these startups:
- Google: C++
- Microsoft: assembly
- Apple: assembly
- eBay/PayPal: Java/C++
Like I said, there is simply no room in the early years of a start up to experiment with recent technology. I'd go further and claim that it's actually critical to use older, established technology to get your startup off the ground so you can focus on your idea without being hampered by technological glitches.
The initial Google work was done at Stanford, Woz worked for HP while developing the Apple I, and I'm not sure which "startup" you're referring to for Elon, but the early Confinity investors included a major bank and one of the CyberCash founders, while Tesla and SpaceX were necessarily heavily-funded long-term projects that were inherently unlike what tech VCs typically go for.
You've listed people whose stories bear little resemblance to the vast majority of little tech startups that subsist on ramen and go through accelerators.
I think his statement is correct in 99%+ of the cases. Of course there are a few startups who will "disrupt" a market with implementation of a new technology. On the other hand, assuming that the only reason to start a company is "changing the world" is very stupid and not how the world works. Thus his statement that if you want to "tinker with cutting edge technology" you shouldn't be in a startup is holds true in the overwhelming number of situations.
tldr; hipsters will grossly overestimate their ability to "change the world" with that "brilliant idea" they had this morning in the shower, so starting a new company is pretty much the worst path to take, if you want to "tinker with technology".
