Since I haven't worked to build any companies solely for the "big exit", I might have a different opinion - I'll ask anyway:
Wouldn't it be better to increase the rate of companies that have viable financial models? What if you could tune a model where 50% of all companies survived for 10 years or more. In some ways, I'd rather have 20 successful $50M companies. And if they were all in my portfolio, I'm sure I'd encourage them to grow in a way that led to increased value AND longevity.
A question to Indian entrepreneurs who are in India: Since you have a culture with a long history and many notable firsts, why is the goal even stated in US dollars?
Fair points smoyer. The post doesn't emphasize on exists, or the lack of it. In India, the approach to determining valuations is very conservative. This deeply hurts b2c startups.
Yes ... it is in some ways the lingua franca of global finance, but since the 1E9 is completely arbitrary too I'm guessing it was only picked as a round number that's in the same league as admired companies. My contention is that this particular number is not "important" (or in the set of "everything important").
One of my bosses (now a professor teaching entrepreneurship to engineering students) once told me that the next target for any company should be a magnitude greater than its current gross (or net) income. I've read a couple of articles that say the same thing about customers.
Wouldn't it be better to increase the rate of companies that have viable financial models? What if you could tune a model where 50% of all companies survived for 10 years or more. In some ways, I'd rather have 20 successful $50M companies. And if they were all in my portfolio, I'm sure I'd encourage them to grow in a way that led to increased value AND longevity.
A question to Indian entrepreneurs who are in India: Since you have a culture with a long history and many notable firsts, why is the goal even stated in US dollars?