It's not the retrospective assessment of a business that's important here but the motivation that sets it in motion in the first place. Take a company like Face

It's not the retrospective assessment of a business that's important here but the motivation that sets it in motion in the first place. Take a company like Facebook: those guys are really serious--almost evangelical--about the goal of making the world more connected; they also happen to be cornering a Google-size market in the process. Or think back to Microsoft before hating on them became so vogue: they had a mission to put a PC in every household which is a pretty admirable goal; it also happened to be the case that it was a damn good business move.