Paul GrahamVerified account

One of the biggest differences between now and the past is how rapidly ideas become money. Now ideas can become money as soon as you put them on a server and set up credit card processing. (And cryptocurrency may soon eliminate the second step.)

Reliable source of startup ideas: reduce the gap between ideas and money. In this sense, AWS and Stripe are in the same business.

Warning: The decreasing gap between ideas and money is one of the main reasons for increasing economic inequality. People's ideas vary dramatically in value. So the more direct the connection between ideas and money, the more inequality you'll see.