Selling the company is the best form of failure, but it is rarely the plan the board entered with, and my point is that it certainly shouldn't be. Even great e

Selling the company is the best form of failure, but it is rarely the plan the board entered with, and my point is that it certainly shouldn't be. Even great exits like Nest's today; I expect Tony Fadell didn't plan to sell, but Google made him an offer he couldn't refuse. So the point isn't that you should never ever sell (and I pointedly don't promise that for Puppet Labs); the point is that your strategy shouldn't be to sell. It's an escape hatch, not a goal.