Why does success == exit? I guess to each his own, but I would hate to be working for years on something with the goal being some finish line, especially when often "exit" for the founders means being sucked into another organization where you have even less control over choosing your work. So many other ways to measure success that this story falls flat for me.
Exits are complex. You have to consider not just your work, but the livelihoods and goals of your team and investors and ultimately where the market is going. The decision to exit is a bit of an out-of-body experience. Often, you don't think about yourself until you are in the process. At that point, hopefully you get to use your personal preferences to make a decision as to who to be acquired by.
You have to take the article in context. The author of the post is a partner at a venture capital firm. In VC the only real measure of success is return on investment.
Great post. One thing I've been thinking a lot about lately is the variance in outcomes in an exit. Contrary to what's written on TC, etc., it doesn't always seem like a happy thing for the founders. At the end of the day you are (probably) getting a normal job again and not working on something you love. The right decision is highly personal and shouldn't be rushed into, and I believe you should figure that out early and plan the business around what really matters to you.
The "if all goes well" outcome is that you pour a decade of your life into your venture. Be prepared with that knowledge to knock out the naive stumbling blocks going in, and then go be that one person who gets it right in your space.
