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Comment by bdcravens | Hacker News Reader

Someone buys my house, but asks me to live in it and care for it. I then live it in like I've lived for years. One day they show up and chop down the tree I planted with my child when they were young, and change the color of the paint.

"What are you doing?! Do you know how much passion I've put into this property?"

"Who cares? It doesn't belong to you anymore, and you've got a pretty decent chunk of change in the bank."

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That's a poor analogy. The goal of a business is ultimately to make money. The goal of a family home is completely different.

You sell your business because you believe the exit represents some version of reaching your goal running the business (if your goal is to run the business, just don't sell it). I don't see any analogous reason to sell your family home (you might be forced to for financial reasons, but that's not why either of the mentioned start-ups sold, nor is such a sale likely to leave you with much money in the bank).

The goal of a business is to make money. However, individuals have their own goals. Sometimes a cofounder's goal is simply to create value by making a product or service that people enjoy.

The home was bought, but the occupants still want to see the home flourish.

The goal of a business is no more to make money, than breathing is the goal of a human.

Now that's an interesting analogy.

The goal of a business is ultimately to make money.

Meh... that seems to be the "received wisdom" around here, but I think that is either flat out wrong, or - at least - overly pedantic. A business needs to make money to stay in business, but I see no reason a business can't have other goals, where "making money" is simply a means to an end.

I don't intend to build in order to have clients; I intend to have clients in order to build. -- Howard Roark

In a company which is still owned by the founders, the "goal of the company" is implicitly the same as the goal of the founder(s) and it certainly may be more than just "making money". Take my startup... we have a very specific mission statement[1] that isn't just something we cooked up because "you're supposed to have one". It represents the mission and goals of the company, beyond simply making money. Now we obviously have to make money at some point or shut down. But we can certainly make decisions that prioritize fulfilling those items from our mission statement, in favour of optimizing profits down to the last cent.

[1]: http://www.fogbeam.com/mission_values.html

Well, I figured that this place more than most accept the definition of "making money" as "creating value, and capturing some of that value".

Fair enough. I might argue that a company can still have broader goals than just that, but I certainly admit that a company must make money at some point and to some degree! And clearly things do change somewhat if you're talking about a company with outside investors or a public company.

In our case, we are privately held by just the founders, so we only have to focus on "make money" to the extent that that supports out other goals. But we don't have to be the stereotypically ruthless, greedy, evil capitalist pigs who ruthlessly chase every cent they can grab, even it it means stealing from babies and old people, or whatever. :-)

The path to that end has many solutions, and the methods to obtain that value are overdetermined. Long term or short term outlooks and nuances between. Cost-benefit analysis paired with changing technology and political landscapes, along with different definitions of what value is and how to go about creating it.

The goal of a business is ultimately to make money.

The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer. - Peter Drucker

A customer is defined as a person who pays a business for goods and services.

Presumably in that scenario you would have a contract specifying these things. So, in that instant you've either got what you signed up for, to have a breach of contract on your hands.

Even more so with selling businesses to businesses. I am assuming they would at least consult a lawyer. If not have the whole deal directed by a team of lawyers.

Beautiful analogy.

I don't understand how entrepreneurs expect to sell their business and reap the rewards while not expecting the acquirer to make modifications to their own benefit.

You'd have to be mad to take an offer like that. On the other hand, you'd have to be mad not to take an offer for way more than the house is worth if you aren't actually very attached to it.

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