Your friend is pretty close; pg has said before that "scalability" is one of the defining characteristics of a startup. They don't necessarily have to become a

Your friend is pretty close; pg has said before that "scalability" is one of the defining characteristics of a startup. They don't necessarily have to become a large company, but, if a startup wants investment, they have to show some chance of scaling quickly. (At which point they get bought, or raise more funding, or something.) HN in general isn't very interested in small businesses. Unfortunately.