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Comment by gkoberger | Hacker News Reader

Stories like this make me think it's almost not worth starting a company. Give 1,200 talented people an awesome place to work, be CEO of a company you truly enjoy leading, provide thousands of companies with a service that makes their lives easier, entertain 150k Twitter followers, make a bunch of your employees first-time millionaires, make millions for your investors, make yourself more money than you'll ever be able to spend... and people still consider you a failure.

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This article was on the front page of the Wall Street Journal today. One thing that struck me when I read it this morning is that the headline is practically unrelated to the article: the word "rich" appears only in the article's 7th paragraph, and the bulk of the piece is pretty straightforward reporting on Box's fundraising efforts.

Box's market cap is approximately $2B. If the founders ended up with, say, $150M combined (the article says over $100M), it may be a relatively small slice -- but of a pretty big pie. I suspect 99.9999% of HN readers would be happy with the results that those two folks managed, and the fact that the company, in this post-Sarbox era, conducted a successful IPO. To put it in perspective, I'm not aware of a single YC-backed company that has had an IPO, though Dropbox seems a likely near-term candidate.

We replaced the title with the subtitle, which is hopefully more accurate.

If that's failure, I don't want to win.

For the record, my point was that Aaron is anything but a failure, and all the press and people saying/implying this upset me.

I see your point, but I'm sure for their families, friends, VCs and all the people that really matter to them, they are successful and inspiring. Everybody else is not important.

If I woke up with 50 million dollars, no matter the situation, I would not consider myself a failure

I read the first sentence and thought you were saying it's not worth it. I'm glad I finished your comment.

There's certainly a difference between $100 million and $1 Billion, but not one that will change your level of happiness.

If the only reason you're starting a company is to be considered a success, it's probably easier to just convince your parents love you in the first place.

To paraphrase Terry Pratchett, I'm sure they'll be crying themselves to sleep on top of their mattresses stuffed with hundred-dollar bills.

Except you're out at 35, a few million in the bank, and a track record that has VCs lining up around the block for whatever you do next.

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