It's been my experience that the community is exactly the opposite. Founders and early employees are generally eager to help others, even when they probably don't have the time to spare. I've always tried to do the same and it has paid off easily 10x in terms of the amount of advice and help my startup has received.
Well so do mountaineers - when there not at the edge of life due to exhaustion in the "death zone".
I'm in same millieu with some of the greatest climbers of the world. And generally they are some of the best (read moral, ethical, sincere) people I ever met.
But when an accident happens somewhere on K2 - sometimes there needs to be a tradeoff - either some die or all die. There have been daring (but foolish) successfull rescue attempts. These guys tend to make peace with the world before they start climbing the damn thing.
Messner himself had to leave his own brother die to stay alive.
I agree wholeheartedly. All the startup founders I've met have all been more than willing to help others out.
But at the same time, when it comes to business decisions, personal relationships often take a back seat (i.e. Zuckerberg), and sometimes it's simply good business (i.e. Eric Schmidt leaving Apple board probably due to Android vs. iPhone, WePay icing Paypal, companies suing each other over IP/copyright... etc).
I'm not at all criticizing the people startup community, but just noticing the similarities among us that drive us towards a similar goal of success with that of Everest climbers trying to summit. To outsiders of either community, certain decisions may seem unintuitive, or even outright morally wrong, but sometimes perspective is everything.
Your clarification helped me to understand your comment. However, I don't think what you describe is unique to startups in any way. Any industry or business can be described with those terms. In fact, it's probably more apt of a description of public companies, which frequently state their purpose it to maximize shareholder value.
With startups, in fact, failure or "leaving someone behind" is probably less traumatic, because failure is accepted and often valued as part of improving. While the company may be left on the wayside, the people will most likely be back again with a new company soon after.
Traumatic isn't really the right word, but you get what I mean.
EDIT: I think I need to clarify, I'm thinking more that startup COMPANIES are like everest climbers, trying to reach profitability/success. And then we can similarly say "[The internet] is littered with dead, exposed bodies [of startups]"
Ok, granted, but there the difference is even more important: companies are not people. They are legal persons, perhaps, but they do not deserve the human empathy from us which humans deserve.
