[hschne]

It's simplistic, but I think there's two ways you can approach building a product company.

Either you focus on creating a great product that customers love. As a consequence, you'll hopefully make some money.

Or you focus on making a truckload of money as quick as possible, and building a product is merely a means to an end.

As OP said, there's far too few companies choosing the first approach, and far too many choosing the second one.

[treyd]

This shouldn't really be that surprising. There's a stronger incentive to do the latter than the former. If it's plausible enough to take the latter strategy that the expected value of the strategy is higher, then that will be the strategy preferentially taken.

[hschne]

I think that's a misconception.

It's quite possible that the expected value for most companies over, say 10 years, is overall higher. I obviously have no data, call it a hunch

We just don't hear enough about companies growing steadily and profitably over the years, but over report on the unicorns and smash hits.

[treyd]

Investors do have that data, and they clearly seem to disagree through their investment strategies, and it seems to be turning out well for them enough for that strategy to be consistently profitable, so your hunch may be wrong.

[danaris]

Investors are pushed to care about this quarter's revenue, and discouraged from caring about anything else, by a host of warped and unintentional incentives.

I don't think we can use their behavior as an indicator of what's optimal over the long run.

[closewith]

So dedicated a longer portion of my life for an equally uncertain lessor reward or try to cash out as soon as possible to focus on the important things. Obviously the latter is the better option.

Even those who follow the former path often opine about lost youth and time with friends and family.