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> startups with zero baggage Well, a megalomaniacal founder who wants to hire 10,000 people and run a huge company has the exact same baggage as his large comp
by doctorpangloss 10y ago
> startups with zero baggage
Well, a megalomaniacal founder who wants to hire 10,000 people and run a huge company has the exact same baggage as his large competitors. The baggage is just cultural, rather than business baggage or technical baggage. I think investors like Aaron Levie, who's all around a brilliant and highly accommodating guy, don't recognize that cultural baggage exists at day 0.
> Don’t hedge your bets.
That makes sense from the point of view of an investment portfolio manager, where you would want all of your companies to do the thing you actually invested in them to do in order to achieve diversity. But from a business point of view, bifurcating strategy could make a ton of sense.
Maybe we're talking about different companies. I really admire places like Valve, which definitely regard culture as their main source of enterprise value (rather than some notion of legacy-free competitiveness) and bifurcation (game development and store management) as successful. You could find lots of people who wouldn't care to found a Box.net. But who wouldn't want to found Valve?
- aresant 10y agoValve was formed in September of 1996 to create Half Life. After two years of grueling, insane focus they managed to push out Half Life on November 19, 1998. After four more years of growing into their shoes they launched Steam in 2002. If they hadn't gone all-in and focused on their first idea there would be no steam, no culture, etc. Being Focusing as a startup is the ONLY option if you want all the trappings / options / creativity / line extension that come out of mature / revenue positive companies. (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation#Founding_and_incorporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation#Founding_and...
- manigandham 10y ago> You could find lots of people who wouldn't care to found a Box.net. But who wouldn't want to found Valve? How'd you come up with this? I'd much rather build Box than Valve. What's so special about Valve other than making some games? Business != culture.
- sockgrant 10y agoWhaaaat? Maybe you're not that into video games. Valve helped define a generation of gaming. You can't tell the history of video games without devoting some time to them. Box is a great company but I don't think it's as impactful.