I like to read pg's essays (they are what drew me to HN), but this one needs more examination of whether the statement "Obviously one case where it would help t

I like to read pg's essays (they are what drew me to HN), but this one needs more examination of whether the statement "Obviously one case where it would help to be rapacious is when growth depends on that. What makes startups different is that usually it doesn't" is really true or not. Some of what I have read in news articles linked to from HN suggests that, say, Groupon or Uber or Airbnb or a variety of other startup businesses may all have done things that look rather rapacious to me to raise their growth rate. Some of those companies are still doing well, and some less so, but the companies we hear about here are all doing better than the companies started the same year that we never hear about, so we need to test pg's proposition by looking at startups that fizzle out soon after they are founded. Perhaps the highest level of niceness is found among companies that never gain high growth rate at all.