[pg]

You mean as more than a way of making money? It depends on the type of person you are, and what your ambitions are. If you're (a) the right sort of person to start your own company, and (b) your ambitions in life would be best realized in the form of a company, then yes. So e.g. Steve Jobs clearly has (a) and as far as I can tell has (b), so for him starting a company was in itself a good thing to do.

[kerryfalk]

Yes, I did mean as more than a way of making money. You've stated that you did in fact start Viaweb to get rich. I know a few other founders that also started companies as an attempt to get rich (I am among them) and continue to chase more. But if I were to ask those same people, whether their companies earned them wealth or not if starting their company was one of the best things they ever did I doubt that the money (or lack thereof) would be much of a factor. Realizing other ambitions (b) is a much, much greater factor.

I'm curious now though. The YC application tries to screen for (a) but doesn't test for (b). Or at least, I didn't recognize that to be the case. Why is that? Is it not just as important? I would think so as I think it's realizing those ambitions that seem to keep people going and provide them with the relentless focus on winning. Or am I wrong and you've designed the application to screen for that as well?

Why a founder will continue to push seems as important as the ability to continue to push.

[pg]

Because (a) is enough. We're cool funding people who are doing it for the money; the startup doesn't have to be their life's work.

[kerryfalk]

That's very interesting, maybe my perspective isn't quite accurate then as your strategy has clearly already been successful. My thought is that to build a large and successful company you need to develop an interest that goes well beyond the desire for money - but I haven't built a large company yet so perhaps I'm naive. Thanks for the reply, pg.