> None of which got started during the current technology cycle. Then I need to understand why the current technology cycle is fundamentally, essentially diffe

> None of which got started during the current technology cycle. Then I need to understand why the current technology cycle is fundamentally, essentially different from previous ones. A business needed to bring in more money than it spent 30 years ago just the same as it does today. > I disagree. In fact, IMHO, the overwhelming majority of startups benefit from organic methods of growth that come from word-of-mouth and reputation. Any startup with more than one customer, pretty much. Owning the market means owning that, in your respective field of business. Start-ups rely on networking but by network effects I'm referring to a very specific phenemenon whereby the value of the product itself increases with each user / car driver / payee / node, etc. This in turn leads to this kind of run-away virality that the Facebooks and Twitters and Ubers of the world experienced. Plenty of start-ups achieve virality in other ways, merely by selling the product over and over to people, and having people sell it to each other through as you point out word-of-mouth. But in the case of network effects that process is compounded exponentially, making it very difficult to scale (without capital) because often times revenue lags behind user growth.