In Response to Paul Graham's "Startup = Growth"
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It is investor driven.
But the part about businesses building value is what is a little fuzzy? What is value, anyway?
If some "growth hackers", using the incedible and low cost reach of the web, manage to get a million people to "sign up" for some "thing" - never mind that you or someone else may think this "thing" is all but worthless - then this is a "business" that can be exploited. And that's what internet VC do.
Consumers define "value". If they are willing to pay in money or even just attention for absolute garbage, it is still "value". This appears to be true, at least it is true for investors, whether we like it or not.
Apple giving affordable Apple IIs to american homes, or Ford, making cars available.
Not "getting a million people to sign up" as a "revenue to be exploited".
In that sense, customers DON'T define value, they just define profits.
He meant value the ethical and "make society better", way.
Silly example: To junk collectors junk has value. But I think it's safe to say not everyone will agree with the junk collector.
Ethics really should not vary all that much from person to person. If it does then what's the point of even having a notion of ethics? The whole idea is to have some sort of common standard.
Value in this sense is nothing like ethics.
If we ask the junk collector if stealing is wrong, his answer should not vary much from the answer anyone else gives.
For some people, enriching investors using the most effective means possible (high growth; any legal business purpose is OK), seems to be well within the scope of "making society better".
Also I don't see PG dismissed small businesses that are not startups in his essay. As long as a business is successful and profitable, any one can be a proud business owner of it. It is just not a company that will have huge growth potential and that's ok in a lot of case for the owner. And I really feel the confusion now is in mainstream business media to label any small business as "startup". IMHO, that is much more problematic and dangerous to anyone in business since that misconception gives small business owners disillusions about their potentials. PG now just says it out loud that, "Without huge growth it is not a startup that will change people's lives."
The idea behind startups is that they don't have to "sustain their own games forever", just until they get bought...
To be bought also requires luck and timing.