[larrys]

"because you're a nice guy"

"We need to make a conscious effort to be good at business."

Part of being good at business is resisting the temptation to listen to some of the things that are written on HN which highlight how wonderful sharing and giving away things are for free, and scorning anything that looks like profiteering at the expense of the poor users, developers or Aunt Jane.

There is what appears to be a consistent "don't be evil" meme where "don't be evil" takes on whatever the group think is jealous of that they can't do but perhaps makes money for companies and developers.

I've run several businesses and make money in many different ways. All above board. But I'm sure if I highlighted some of the things that I do I would be roundly criticized and downvoted on HN for, in the opinion of the group, taking advantage of people, developers, programmers who expect perhaps that everyone dedicates countless hours to helping others for the good of society. One example might be anytime I attempt to highlight how I've sold or help sell domain names for people. The hate comes out in droves from HN'ers who don't believe there is absolutely any justification at all for someone being able to sell a domain name. Of course if I tell the same story to regular business people I get looks of envy - consistently. While it is true that they don't have a horse in the race, they also appreciate the point of business is to make money.

[rganguly]

"the point of business is to make money" - YES YES YES. Couldn't agree more on this. In the midst of all the noise about how focusing on revenues and profits is besides the point because you need to get tons of user adoption, it's nice use the word BUSINESS over and over and over. We're independent BUSINESS owners, creating BUSINESSES in order to remain independent, to work on what we love and believe in with people we respect and adore. Ignoring that we have to make money, that the math needs to work out favorably and that we owe it to our teammates and employees is not going to end well. Take responsibility for building a BUSINESS not a feel-good hobby.