

In Response to Paul Graham's "Startup = Growth" - sfard
http://throwww.com/a/1oy

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garbaaj
The blog post zeros right in on the purpose of the pg essay.

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.

~~~
batista
> _But the part about businesses building value is what is a little fuzzy?
> What is value, anyway?_

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.

~~~
garbaaj
Value will vary from buyer to buyer.

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".

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eugenejen
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."

~~~
batista
> _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._

The idea behind startups is that they don't have to "sustain their own games
forever", just until they get bought...

~~~
eugenejen
But founders would never know when the startup will be bought, right? Probably
it is better to hack ways out of the jungle and prepare to die in the way.

To be bought also requires luck and timing.

