I'm at a growing startup of almost 100 employees. In my 2 years there I've repeatedly heard the CEO bash our partners' "lifestyle businesses" for their lack of

I'm at a growing startup of almost 100 employees. In my 2 years there I've repeatedly heard the CEO bash our partners' "lifestyle businesses" for their lack of ambition. These are companies of 20-30 people where the founders are pulling in 300-500k a year without working much more than 40 hours a week. Ironically, if our upside game flops our company would devolve to exactly the same thing. This is a fantastic middle ground as far as I'm concerned and I'll be very happy to take a stab at this myself after I feel that I've learned all I need to know from working for the man.