The statement that there are no ethical billionaires who’ve gotten there by creating something approximating a billion dollars of value can be trivially disproven through a single counterexample.

The fact that her detractors have spilt gallons of ink arguing against her point without providing such a counterexample speaks volumes.

Plenty of counterexamples have been provided, people just don't accept them because the definition of ethical is subjective. And when you have circular reasoning that defines making money itself as unethical, then you become impossible to please.

But here's a quick list from the top of my head: Judy Faulkner of Epic Systems, Hamdi Ulukaya from Cobani, the founders of Canva, the founders of Stripe, Tobi Lutke from Shopify, Paul Graham himself, Taylor Swift, Beyonce, George Lucas, Roger Federer, J.K. Rowling. Probably dozens/hundreds of others.

If you do something that somebody likes and they give you $1000, that's ethical. But if you do something a million people like, and they give you $1000, then you're a billionaire, somehow you must be unethical?