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Absolutely nothing. It's brain melting difficult to build a $50 million dollar business. If you can get to $50 million, you might as well up the ante, and just

• shahan 15y ago
  This is almost equivalent to saying that the expected value of a startup increases with the scale you aim for -- clearly not true after some point.
  • lmm 15y ago
    No, the point is that $50 million and $1 billion are the same for most practical purposes. Aiming for one rather than the other isn't going to meaningfully change how you act; in this context, both are just absurdly big numbers.
    • shahan 15y ago
      The number you're aiming for is going to meaningfully change how you act. For example, you might get an offer for $50 million. If you do, the probability of making it to $1 billion matters. (Incidentally, the creator of this community was faced with almost exactly this choice.) It may be true that the number of $1 billion exits per year is only, say, 10 times fewer than the number of $50 million exits. It's an empirical question. The numbers matter. Let's just raise the $1 billion number until it's a better bet to go for $50 million. At some point the argument that "both are just absurdly big numbers" breaks down. Perhaps the reason people think that the numbers don't matter is because they believe that the skills required to build a $50 million company is no different than those required to build a $1 billion (or $100 billion) company. That I buy.