[jriddycuz]

I would agree that to be counted among your "thousands of examples" of outliers, one would have to be obsessively dedicated. Not everyone wants to be a Newton or a Da Vinci though. And there is nothing wrong with that. FogCreek and 37signals are certainly nowhere near as publicly visible as many SV startups, but they are successful and they became that way without the extreme levels of energy that SV startups seem to demand.

Now those firms and their ilk may not fit your definition of "startup", but they are still ex nihilo undertakings that have been able to supply some very demanding consumers. They'll never be as sexy as the Valley kids, but their continued existence serves as ample evidence of their validity. And in that sense, it is a myth that startups must be all-consuming.

[abstractbill]

Now those firms and their ilk may not fit your definition of "startup"...

This whole debate seems to hinge on the definition of "startup". I'd be interested in historical evidence to back-up or refute the claim 37signals makes: Has the meaning of "startup" actually been hijacked? Or has it always meant what pg (and wikipedia) say it does?

[jriddycuz]

Startup companies can come in all forms, but the phrase "startup company" is often associated with high growth, technology oriented companies. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup_company

This seems to be a reasonably good description of what the word means and what it is commonly associated with. You can call practically any young firm a startup, but it does most commonly refer to PG's definition. Like DHH said in the post, "starting a business" just does not have the near-mythical connotations "startup" has, but those connotations are result of the stories that typical startup culture provides. I don't think there's a way to make "starting a sustainable business" sound sexy because it's not a very sexy idea. And perhaps people with a spouse and kids shouldn't worry too much about how sexy an idea is, but rather how valuable it is.