Just fucking create a killer product and work on refining that product to the best of your abilities. If you get bored, start a new company. You don't have to grow every company into the next Apple.
Previous discussions here have repeatedly told me that it's a condition for or result of getting vc funding.
There is also such a thing as "HN bias".
Uber already took a huge amount of VC funding, so mid-size strategies won’t work. Investors would rather risk the whole company on a 1% chance of becoming Google or Home Depot than take a 50% chance of becoming Applebees. Even though Applebees is presumably a nice, profitable business, those kind of numbers are not useful for the portfolio position they have Uber in.
That’s just the reality for the folks running Uber today. If they try to turn it into a mid-sized business, the board will fire them.
If I read the discussion charitably, someone up-thread wanted to shift the conversation to “what should’ve Uber done in 2012?” while their responders think they’re talking about “What can Uber do at this point?”
I don’t think you need to act like we’re incapable of thinking about building businesses smaller than Google.
I'd argue that that is the exact reason why Apple is where it's at today.
If you don't want to grow that's fine, but then don't go public and don't seek VC funding. Investors make money when you grow; they generally don't make much when you don't. Ergo, they will always be pushing you to grow.