[pyalot2]

That's one of several definitions of a startup, and it's not the only one, or even an accurate one.

- There are any number of companies that started without outside investors.

- There are any number of startups that take outside investment but never scale.

- There are lifestyle businesses that turned out to scale at some point or another.

- To interpret compounding only in terms of taking investment and throwing away your life is a very narrow minded point of view.

[jacquesm]

That's the HN general use of the word start-up as per PG's definition. I agree there are others but it helps if we all use the terms the same way.

See here:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4556838

[pyalot2]

Sure, I don't disagree with Startup == Growth. I disagree that it means anything but (such as outside investment, winning the startup/facebook lottery, compounding, putting insane life crushing hours, etc.)

There's a reason PG formulated it thus simply. It would be odd if for instance in the case of Viaweb (a startup without outside funding) PG would disqualify himself from having done a startup, but then went on to define startups...

[paul_f]

If we're gonna go there, lifestyle businesses solve real customer needs, usually for other businesses. Startups collect lyrics for hip-hop music. :-)