Mad respect Chuck but I feel like you're being a little reductionist. Couldn't I weave a story that these guys would have been hackers in the 70s, exploiting telephone networks for fun and profit?
Rather than do that, I'll just say some things are just what they are, and don't need to be explained by being 'like' something else. Especially when it comes to Madmen, its just too easy to make anything mythological by conflating it with that show.
I always figured he was inspired by Tom Wolfe, who always wore a white suit in public. Wolfe emerged in the sixties and wrote novels about the counter culture movement. Job's references to things like 'the whole earth catalog' and other 60s icons always seem to point to his style.
Its awesome when things like this are put out into the community. I hope it gets very specific. Paul's experiences are most similar to where an early stage startup will have. A couple years back most of the information on this topic glossed over angel investing, which was the first step an entrepreneur needed to know about. Without understanding how to get past that part, knowing how to raise a series A didn't matter.
In fact, one could argue that living on Ramen and the bare minimum is NOT sustainable, but theoretically profitable, and gets you by in the meantime.
Of course, maybe I'm overthinking this and the author is just milking a reference to paul graham for clicks.