I'm sure it's been a very tough experience and the author learned a lot during the time. But I would expect that if you fail to build a billion dollar company you end up at least with a $100 million company...
Unfortunately failing to build a billion dollar company often means ending up with a $0 company. Like the OP said, VC too often comes with the pressure to either succeed in a big way or pack everything up and go home. And when your liquidation preferences are greater than the current value of your company, as a founder it's not very compelling to keep moving forward.