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He specifically addresses this in footnote [3].

When I say people are starting more companies, I mean the type of company meant to grow very big. There has actually been a decrease in the last couple decades in the overall number of new companies. But the vast majority of companies are small retail and service businesses. So what the statistics about the decreasing number of new businesses mean is that people are starting fewer shoe stores and barber shops.

The news has gone from bad to worse. Winner-take-all regulations, customs, and market manipulations are good for Bezos, but not for normal humans and not for the economy as a whole. It has been even worse in pandemic time, since the small shops just closed down while the bigger firms were somehow exempted from those requirements.

And he tries to spin it:

> So what the statistics about the decreasing number of new businesses mean is that people are starting fewer shoe stores and barber shops.

He might like to point out that the decrease is disproportionately higher among those types of businesses that are part of a thriving community, but the reality is the overall number of businesses being started has gone down.

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