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I see the problem not as VC money, but the ridiculous idea of the optimised one-size mass-marketable product. The myth of "what people want" (which is art entirely pulled out of the air of marketing, public opinion, focus groups in the 1980s) goes against the impetus that consumer digital technology originally emerged from... namely that the microprocessor revolution replaced giant fixed-function pieces of iron with agile, modular, user-definable, technology. We've gone full circle on that. We're back to a world where 5 giant monopolies make stuff offering two choices; take it or leave it. Life happens at the margins, and the only thing in the middle of the road, is roadkill.

The issue I think you're outlining is whether someone builds because they believe in their product and its value or if they are profiteers charading as believers.

I'm not saying profit isn't a factor, but a lot of these founders are five year founders, they are using the company as a means to their end. Basically I'm criticizing short sightedness and what it does to our economy. That's why I've turned against the stock market. The high liquidity means you are beholden to thousands of people who view your company as a roulette wheel amongst thousands, who want immediate gains and have no stomach for any losses. And many of the founders are the same people wearing a different hat.

> The issue I think you're outlining is whether someone builds because they believe in their product and its value or if they are profiteers charading as believers.

I do agree with your overall criticism of short-sightedness and the short term incentives of VC and the stock market, etc.

But the people involved are not quite as binary as you lay out in the quote above. You can't discount the group of people who really do start out as true believers and who become seduced/deceived by VCs. Some of these VC types are real vultures. They'll convince the founder that the best way to share their vision or product with the most people and do the most good for the world is to let the VC guys use their capital to scale up and expand the reach of the product, etc. The money surely helps to lower one's skepticism/cynicism, but I can imagine that it must be very hard to say no to getting your dream project out to millions of people.

>The high liquidity means you are beholden to thousands of people who view your company as a roulette wheel amongst thousands, who want immediate gains and have no stomach for any losses.

This sounds a lot like Warren Buffett's opinion of stocks. The Berkshire Hathaway Class A stocks are 780k each because he wanted people to act like investors, not speculators.

> Can can git rich by growing slowly in many cases - but it will be a long hard road.

Most people don't have the patience for it and it's not as flashy. Morgan Housel (author of The Psychology of Money) on what a lot of people don't get about Warren Buffett:

> He's 90 years old. But if you look at the course of his life 99% of his net worth came after his 50th birthday and something like 97% came after his 65th birthday. That's just how compounding Works compounding is not something where the big Returns come in a year or in a decade. It's something that takes place over the course of a lifetime and it's important for someone like Warren Buffett to say look, he's 90 years old. He's been investing full-time since he's been 10 years old. So he's been investing for 80 years now. It's really important. Is that the Math on this is very simple. You can hypothetically say, okay if Warren Buffett did not start investing when he was 10. Let's say hypothetically he started investing when he was 25 like a normal person and let's say hypothetically he did not keep investing through age 90 like he has let's say hypothetically he retired at age 65 like a normal person and he would say he was just as successful and investor during that period that he was investing and he earned the same average annual Returns. What would his net worth be today? If you started investing at 25 and retired at 65 the answer is about Million dollars not 90 billion 12 million. So we know that 99.9% of his net worth can be tied to just the amount of time. He has been investing for that's how compounding works it is. So incredibly powerful, but it is rarely intuitive. Even if you understand the math behind compounding it's almost never to it intuitive how powerful it can be.

* https://podclips.com/ct/RhYCoA

See, this is the thing that I, as a non-founder, have trouble understanding. Presumably the product is started by an enthusiast, an enthusiast _for the product_. Is it just hard to maintain that level of enthusiasm over time? Is the sum of possible money just too desirable? If feels like we're on this unending treadmill towards constant enshittification of literally every single thing that I interact with on a daily basis. All of the apps on my phone eventually turn into shit piles, all of the business/work software I use is constantly moving towards bullshit, even the houses that I rent, the newer construction is noticeably shittier than the old houses. Wifi got better for a while but now appears to be backsliding to the point of maximum frustration that the user will take (while given no viable second choice).

Obviously not all of these are founder centric things but they're all profit driven enterprises. Is it actually just not possible for a typical human to turn down excess profits and take pride in a project rather than a money machine? People seem to think these things used to be better, "no one takes pride in their work anymore", "everything is made to break", etc. What changed?

IF you are running a successful business you are probably spending the majority of your time not on the thing you are enthusiastic about, but instead just business work. Many businesses fail because the owner doesn't spend enough time in the office - many businesses owners suddenly became a lot more successful when they spent more time in the office. They likely are good and and like doing what the business is about (running a backhoe, pulling wires, or whatever), but all the office work means they never get to do it. To the employees it looks like they sold out and don't get it anymore - but the employees don't realize it is because of that office work they get their paycheck on time.

As such it is not surprise things change. You can't go from making less money than you could elsewhere to making a nice income without a lot of office time.

Of course it is common to take the above too far. There is need for office work, but often those office employees forget that it is about the real world.

> Many businesses fail because the owner doesn't spend enough time in the office - many businesses owners suddenly became a lot more successful when they spent more time in the office. They likely are good and and like doing what the business is about (running a backhoe, pulling wires, or whatever), but all the office work means they never get to do it.

The alternative here is to hire and train people to spend time in the office, rather than selling the company to someone who will do so. That has its own potential problems, for sure, but getting your soul eaten by VC is not one of them.

> Is it just hard to maintain that level of enthusiasm over time? Is the sum of possible money just too desirable?

I do not recall the book/essay or the original author, but I recall the quote that “everybody has a price they can’t resist, find out that price…”.

If your enthusiasm product is successful and has potential to be milked, someone somewhere will figure out your price and eventually buy you out.

I'm hard-pressed to believe that there is any situation where VC money is the best answer. It may be the best answer for the person taking the VC cashout, but not the best answer for our world as a whole.