I think you might be referring to the early exit syndrome of Midwestern startups [1]. The point of the article was not to say that exits are bad, only that to

I think you might be referring to the early exit syndrome of Midwestern startups [1]. The point of the article was not to say that exits are bad, only that to develop a cultural milieu of technology in a particular region, there is a need for at least some companies to stick it out and remain determined to become long-lived and predicated upon a chosen workplace culture. If companies never do that, then a given region can't generate enough inertia to remain a competitive place, and this has all sorts of bad effects on the employment market in that area. I thought Michael O. Church had a great extension of that article in his recent post [2]. He argues that the broader short-term goals of VCs in general are misaligned with the fundamental value creation premise that undergirds the idea of start-up culture (or at least what was start-up culture when the term was new). [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10579370 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10579370 [2] https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/its-not-early-exit-disease-just-exit-disease-thats-killing-innovation-outside-of-and-inside-silicon-valley/ https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/its-not-earl...