Hacker News Reader

Wait, now you're judging companies by their size? Not the exits for the founders? That seems backwards.

Take Mathematica. You don't think Stephen Wolfram is very happy with his "lifestyle business"?

The more that I think about this, the more I wonder why we don't hear more about companies that succeed in this way. Surely they're out there but they're just privately piling up revenues? I'm amazed we can't name more.

Is 37 signals artificially limiting their size or are they growing organically?

There are tons; you just rarely hear about them.

It would be neat to profile them wouldn't it? Im betting a large portion of them have found that the start-up scene and growing large is great at the beginning of your career, but perhaps stability comes into play? Kids, Wife, Health?

It seems like a self-selection effect. We hear about the ones buying PR and pumping up their value. Those that are organically growing value don't need fertilizer.

They don't want the attention and the resulting competition?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com