Well, I think most refutations to PG's essay are based on an assumption: "Focusing on growth leads to being evil". It is probably due to too many negative stories in media about cheaters. But as we all know, cheaters can not sustain their own games forever due to the cheats violate some underlying fundamentals. So how about rephrasing the sentence as "Focus on growth while be nice to users and seek out real ways to optimize products to stand out among competitors and grow like wildfire"? Don't we all like good guys to win the game?

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."