| I think that this is an important point. The term "startup" has been narrowed to the point where it doesn't include what are disparagingly referred to as "lifestyle companies". And I think that's really unfortunate because controlling the language controls the thinking. Let's face it: people (at least in tech circles) think it is very cool to be in a startup. And it is in the VCs interests to further that sense -- of being caught up in something big and exciting. It lends a rockstar sensibility to a startup that is NOT conferred to a lifestyle company. Even reading at Paul's posting on this tends to reinforce that subtle dig -- look at the examples: "landscaping company or a shoe store or a restaurant". None of those sound exciting to me. Perhaps my issue is that the measure of "grow very large" is ambiguous. Does it mean large profits? Sorry, Facebook. Large revenues? Sorry Youtube. Spending lots of money? Yay Webvan! Perhaps it means employing lots of people -- which the left-winger in me approves of mightily! I've always felt that the goal should be to touch as many lives a possible. That's my personal metric on which I base "large". This is consistent with Paul's examples -- you can touch a limited number of people with a landscaping company or a shoe store or a restaurant. But on the web you can touch a LOT of lives with a small set of money. I would hazard that David's touched far more lives at 37Signals through their consumer products and through Rails than all by one or two of the startups on YC or part of YC. That's large. In my world, that counts as a startup. |