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I know Mark well and we even worked together on Genevine for a bit. He's one of the brightest people I know. Seriously, he gets things done fast and understands

I know Mark well and we even worked together on Genevine for a bit. He's one of the brightest people I know. Seriously, he gets things done fast and understands business along with tech. They're mostly projects, he knows the distinction as shown below in a comment. It's great to build things and tinker. Eventually one of them makes sense to you, takes off a bit, a bigger vision presents itself, and you turn it into a startup. Some of the comments here gave him crap for his track record. That scares me because it might prevent people from building things. On the other hand, I think the entrepreneurship community needs to do a better job distinguishing from projects=> startups. Startups involve customers depending on you, peoples well being via salary/career as employees, possible investor's returns, and a lot of other serious responsibility. We need to emphasize the responsibility that comes with it. In closing though, keep in mind facebook started as a fun project. Zuck had built a ton of things by 19. Eventually there was a point where it turned into a startup. Maybe it's fair to say the turning point of when a project becomes a startup is when the livelihood of others depends upon said "project". Really curious to hear others' thoughts. (Sorry for long rant mode. I'm on my way to the airport on my iPhone. Will probably make some of this subject matter one of my first articles for 2011 after getting some comments here)

markbao 16y ago
Really appreciate the kind words, Jason. Thanks :) Some thoughts: one pretty important metric for determining whether it's a startup or not is ramen profitability. Not when the project owners' livelihood depends on the project, but when it can depend on the project if needed. However, the caveat is when it isn't profitable at all but still considered a startup (like when a lot of time and money is put in but it hasn't entered that stage), in which case the determination is more murky. Thoughts?
- jeromec 16y ago
  I upvoted you, but I'd simplify that point even further. I'd call it a startup when it has traction. Technically speaking Twitter has never been ramen profitable. However, their obvious traction and growth brought in tons of investment, enough to allay any monetary concerns.

markbao 16y ago

Really appreciate the kind words, Jason. Thanks :) Some thoughts: one pretty important metric for determining whether it's a startup or not is ramen profitability. Not when the project owners' livelihood depends on the project, but when it can depend on the project if needed. However, the caveat is when it isn't profitable at all but still considered a startup (like when a lot of time and money is put in but it hasn't entered that stage), in which case the determination is more murky. Thoughts?

jeromec 16y ago
I upvoted you, but I'd simplify that point even further. I'd call it a startup when it has traction. Technically speaking Twitter has never been ramen profitable. However, their obvious traction and growth brought in tons of investment, enough to allay any monetary concerns.