But doesn't that picture track the current essay rather well? Apart from a false start that turns out to be noise, it shows a series of experiments that don't go anywhere for a while but eventually produce a repeatable growth rate.
If the diagram were data, the essay would explain it.
Not at all. Notice that Paul says you should be alarmed if you are not hitting 5/7% growth per week. That kind of growth only makes up a tiny fraction of "the process" and, in my opinion, is the easy part to deal with. The hard part, where VC/gurus can add value is the vast gut-it-out parts, but this essay hurts more than it helps on that axis.
I think this is an essay more about "startups y combinator can flip to VCs" than startups.
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/03/the-startup-curve.html
Seems like there's a lot of non-startup in that startup curve, if we are using the new Paul Graham's definitions.