31–40 of 133 posts
PG wrote a good post on this topic (a counterpoint I would argue). Unfortunately I can't find it. But it's about why selling your company makes sense -- why you should give it to people who are optimzied for running a business. Or something to that effect. Probably worth rereading if I could find it.
I can't say he was mistaken, since he was only saying he disliked it. But I don't think there's anything wrong with selling a company at any stage. Steve's problem with selling seemed to be that you're shirking work by doing it. But that isn't necessarily, or even usually, true. A lot of people who sell startups go on to do other things, and often bigger things. If we were still running Viaweb, we could not have star…
With this in mind I wonder why he chose to sell Pixar. While he made a tremendous amount of money from the sale, I don't think it was really enough to make a tremendous change in his lifestyle.
In fact, Apple has benefited tremendously by buying off companies to enhance its products (e.g. touch screen). Had everyone out there decided to build long sustaining companies, there would had been large economic inefficiencies.
I can't say he was mistaken, since he was only saying he disliked it. But I don't think there's anything wrong with selling a company at any stage. Steve's problem with selling seemed to be that you're shirking work by doing it. But that isn't necessarily, or even usually, true. A lot of people who sell startups go on to do other things, and often bigger things. If we were still running Viaweb, we could not have star…
Did you start viaweb to sell it to someone else later, or did you start it to build an actual sustainable business?
This from the guy who took the $5000 for breakout after Woz stayed up for 4 days straight fixing design issues caused by bad specs from Jobs. Fucking managers.
That's too bad.
Source? edit: did some googling and it's from the biography. This is what I hate about tumblr. It's all completely random stuff with no context, no sourcing and no discussion, just those pointless reblog "notes" edit2: of course, biography not autobiography, dunno what I was thinking
Perhaps this is nitpicking, in this day and age. But that's his biography (as opposed to autobiography). BTW, how would you do things differently than reblog "notes"?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The crazy thing is that you hear people talking about how they've "started a company" when they haven't figured out how to make their new operation do the primary thing a company does, which is MAKE MONEY. If you're not making money, you're not a company. You're a collection of people that might be a company, someday.
I guess Amazon wasn't a company until years after they went public.
I can't say he was mistaken, since he was only saying he disliked it. But I don't think there's anything wrong with selling a company at any stage. Steve's problem with selling seemed to be that you're shirking work by doing it. But that isn't necessarily, or even usually, true. A lot of people who sell startups go on to do other things, and often bigger things. If we were still running Viaweb, we could not have star…
What he's criticizing is doing a startup specifically so that it could be flipped later. If you are in it to build a real company, you actually go through the hard work that Jobs is talking about. Did you start viaweb to sell it to someone else later, or did you start it to build an actual sustainable business?
Between this post and comments from startup school along the same lines, there seems to be a lot of people complaining about founders looking to make a quick buck without having to work hard for it. I live in SF. I'm running a startup, and many of my friends are as well. Where are these lazy, get rich quick people I keep reading about? Am I just lucky to only be surrounded by hard-working entrepreneurs who are trying…