I think what swombat's calling out here is the difference between the social nature of startups, where everybody wants to look cool and do and say the right thing, and the actual nature of startups, where if you're not growing eyeballs exponentially or making something somebody actually pays you for then you're dead.
The startup world is a social community just like any other guild or clan. We have leaders, common dreams, mantras, and so on. It's become quite popular for really rich guys to tell us how it's not about the money. When I first heard this I took it at face value. Then I realized what they were really saying was you can't just focus on the money. That's a big difference!
Part of the danger in hanging out in places like HN is that it's easy to pick up on all the social cues of the startup world and miss out on the practical nuts and bolts of it. So we'll get our nerd on and discuss esoteric programming concepts. Or we'll rant at company X and praise company Y for basically doing the same thing. Or we'll vote up an essay by famous startup icon even if it's not that worthwhile. More to the point we'll praise one startup idea because it's "cool", then we'll shun another because it's unpopular in our social group.
I love making things people want. People show me they want them by paying me. I need the money, so this works well for everybody. Once I don't need the money, I'll still love making things people want. At that point, however, I need to be really damn sure I'm actually doing something that has value aside from just a bunch of people in my peer group telling me how awesome my idea is. And before I get there, the last thing I want to do is use their opinions as any sort of useful metric at all on what I should be doing. Money is a much better temporary proxy.
The startup world is a social community just like any other guild or clan. We have leaders, common dreams, mantras, and so on. It's become quite popular for really rich guys to tell us how it's not about the money. When I first heard this I took it at face value. Then I realized what they were really saying was you can't just focus on the money. That's a big difference!
Part of the danger in hanging out in places like HN is that it's easy to pick up on all the social cues of the startup world and miss out on the practical nuts and bolts of it. So we'll get our nerd on and discuss esoteric programming concepts. Or we'll rant at company X and praise company Y for basically doing the same thing. Or we'll vote up an essay by famous startup icon even if it's not that worthwhile. More to the point we'll praise one startup idea because it's "cool", then we'll shun another because it's unpopular in our social group.
I love making things people want. People show me they want them by paying me. I need the money, so this works well for everybody. Once I don't need the money, I'll still love making things people want. At that point, however, I need to be really damn sure I'm actually doing something that has value aside from just a bunch of people in my peer group telling me how awesome my idea is. And before I get there, the last thing I want to do is use their opinions as any sort of useful metric at all on what I should be doing. Money is a much better temporary proxy.