Both descriptors are too general, they hide the good and bad implementations of either approach. Depending on your experience of either side (which I, too, hav

Both descriptors are too general, they hide the good and bad implementations of either approach. Depending on your experience of either side (which I, too, have) another way of looking at the comparison is, respectively, an organisation that hopes to turn into a business in the future, or a profitable business now. Naturally, both sides want to earn revenue and be profitable. Only, on the 'startup' side, you have to have a really good reason to be in the position to take that funding. You need to know, I think, the first market you will tackle, the first problem you will solve and the first ways you will begin building revenue and profitability, otherwise you are just wasting time with other people's cash. If a startup is a medical company needing funding for R&D, fine. If a startup is a hardware company needing to fill inventory, fine. If the startup is a software company that has worked out a repeatable sales model and now wants to get boots on the floor peddling those wares, also fine. I guess what I'm saying is that it feels to me in software that 'startup' is almost the default, when in reality it should be a special case, or a latter day option as you scale up an already proven sales model.