I live and work in Silicon Valley, and I agree that the concepts in the article are pretty elementary and critical to understand in any business, not just tech.

I live and work in Silicon Valley, and I agree that the concepts in the article are pretty elementary and critical to understand in any business, not just tech. However: if your software product has struck gold, it will have “rocket ship” nearly-free growth and negligible incremental costs. In that regime, only the top line really matters. This is the kind of home run that many people are looking for in Silicon Valley, both founders and investors, which explains the relative “traditional” financial illiteracy in startups around here.