I may be a romantic, but success is more than financial. I would rather have built a company that built something worthwhile and helped people and sold for $1 than one that produced nothing of value and sold for $50 million.
I share your values but I don't consider myself to be a romantic. On the contrary, to my current knowledge building a sustainable non-profit org or social enterprise that has a chance to benefit a large number of people is more rewarding and meaningful than building a profitable startup. After a certain threshold happiness doesn't increase with income, so treating success as something multi-dimensional is perfectly aligned with self interest.
However, startups are optimized for high returns for investors(higher priority) and founders(lower priority).
While some startup business models do have positive externalities it is usually a instrument for financial success, not a goal in itself.
Sucess or failure of a startup should be judged by its goals: profits for the stakeholders. The value generated by the startup should be assessed by the same criteria. Thus it's technically incorrect to say that a startup sold for $50 million produced nothing of value.
I agree, but think about how many people you could help with your share of the $50 million, though (assuming of course that you didn't get screwed and your share amounted to significantly more than $0).
I was of course assuming here that I would get none of the $50 million :)
More seriously I have given up in the past on substantial financial rewards because I felt it was not a path I was wanted to pursue. It is rare you will ever get to choose between $50 million and $1, but you will be faced with smaller versions of this every day. While you may die poorer, my belief is that you should always choose integrity and substance over money and hype.
