Ask HN: Startups – Make Money vs. Change the World

[gkjin]

I've been following the tech scene for a while and it seemed like the general advise for future startup founders is to make sure you are really passionate about the problem you are trying to solve [1] and startups are supposed to "disrupt" existing business and "change the world". And if your reason for starting a business is just to make money, it seemed like you are destined to fail. However, after reading some biographies of successful entrepreneurs, it does seemed like making money WAS the main motivation and they weren’t particularly "passionate" about the problems they were trying to solve. A good example would be Dennis Felix. In his book "How To Get Rich", he mentioned that the biggest myth regarding getting rich - “The first is the claim that people did not set out to get rich but became rich by 'accident'. 'Oh, I only did what I love to do and woke up one day to find myself wealthy.' That sort of thing. It may have happened. But very rarely in my experience”. From Paul Getty’s How To Be Rich, “Almost without exception, there is only one way to make a great deal of money in the business world–and that is in one’s own business.” And finally, From John D Rockefeller’s Biography, he was initially selling meat or some sort but changed to the refining oil business as soon as he realised that it made more money.

Thoughts?

[1] https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/good-and-bad-reasons-to-become-an-entrepreneur-decf0766de8d

[hugh4]

Doing either of those things is very hard.

I am wary of those who want to "change the world". Change the world for the better, or the worse? What makes you smart enough to be sure you'll be doing the former and not the latter?