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// Also being older I don’t care about making a unicorn You can use that term as a proxy for delivering large impact to the world. It's approximately the same

// Also being older I don’t care about making a unicorn You can use that term as a proxy for delivering large impact to the world. It's approximately the same thing. If you do something like "aged care" and "dealing with kids schools" in a way that helps millions of people, you'll end up a billionaire whether you want to or not. I don't use the term "unicorn" but I think keeping score in financial terms helps because that's how you know you've delivered something people want and at scale. If you remove money out of the equation it's easier to fool yourself thinking you're making some difference and you're not.

waveBidder 3y ago
But unicorns and the people who fund them are all about disconnecting from actual returns today, and caring about projected returns in 10 years. Accidentally becoming very popular is great. Aiming for that as the goal distorts the business into something unsustainable and inevitably leads to enshittification.
mewpmewp2 3y ago
But perhaps he doesn't want to make THAT much impact. Some decent impact would be fine, of course. It seems a lot of responsibility to have impact on millions of people, might lead you down the road of drugs and alcohol, killing your health to be able to handle it. If I have a business that impacts millions of people, then every hour I spend on it, would have huge influence, and if I don't spend the hours on increasing that percentage, I'm also letting down millions of people.
dtnewman 3y ago
Counterpoint: Rudolph Hass, creator of the original hass avocado, barely made anything from it. I’m not gonna say that the Hass Avocado had more impact than Apple or Google, but it’s definitely more impactful than any $1-10 billion company I can think of.
- teaearlgraycold 3y ago
  Isn’t the story that some crazy old seed man gave him a Hass seed and we don’t really know where it came from?
  - b112 3y ago
    Such a Californian, colloquial tale. I'd had never seen an avocado in any grocery story growing up, never tasted it until I visited California. Is this "changing the world"? Well I suppose it could be, after all myriads of people have never used or even heard of slack.
codethatwerks 3y ago
You can fool yourself with money too. Often it is more profitable to do the unethical thing.

waveBidder 3y ago

But unicorns and the people who fund them are all about disconnecting from actual returns today, and caring about projected returns in 10 years. Accidentally becoming very popular is great. Aiming for that as the goal distorts the business into something unsustainable and inevitably leads to enshittification.

mewpmewp2 3y ago

But perhaps he doesn't want to make THAT much impact. Some decent impact would be fine, of course. It seems a lot of responsibility to have impact on millions of people, might lead you down the road of drugs and alcohol, killing your health to be able to handle it. If I have a business that impacts millions of people, then every hour I spend on it, would have huge influence, and if I don't spend the hours on increasing that percentage, I'm also letting down millions of people.

dtnewman 3y ago

Counterpoint: Rudolph Hass, creator of the original hass avocado, barely made anything from it. I’m not gonna say that the Hass Avocado had more impact than Apple or Google, but it’s definitely more impactful than any $1-10 billion company I can think of.

teaearlgraycold 3y ago
Isn’t the story that some crazy old seed man gave him a Hass seed and we don’t really know where it came from?
- b112 3y ago
  Such a Californian, colloquial tale. I'd had never seen an avocado in any grocery story growing up, never tasted it until I visited California. Is this "changing the world"? Well I suppose it could be, after all myriads of people have never used or even heard of slack.

codethatwerks 3y ago

You can fool yourself with money too. Often it is more profitable to do the unethical thing.