Comments on: Profitability covers a multitude of sins

Get profitable as fast as you can. That's the way to survive the downturn.

[servermaker]

The open source mentality? Come on. Only in the world of venture-backed technology startups can advice like "don't spend too far ahead of revenue" and "get profitable" be seen as anything other than laughably obvious. It's funny that the same venture investors who have historically cheered for "getting big fast" and encouraging founders and their shotgun CEOs to "go big or go home" while suggesting "if you are profitable you are not investing enough" are now delivering sound operating guidance. I guess when the suckers downstream stop buying the nonsense (e.g. the public markets and big company acquirors) those upstream are forced to build real companies. Evenutally people catch on...

But there is one born every minute, as the old saying goes, so I'm sure most venture-backed startups will be back to business as usual soon enough.

[Vurk]

"to be 'impatient for profits' " is how the economy got where it is today; VC's and other greedy investor-types are always the ones pushing for "impatience".
VC's need to let companies run their own businesses, and stop micromanaging. If they believe in the business enough to fund it, they should then get out of the way and let business happen.

Or dont invest.

[Matt Asay]

@Vurk: I respectfully disagree. We got where we are today by being "impatient for growth," not profit. When companies spend beyond their means (which is sometimes a good thing if a market opportunity demands it), they're begging for trouble if the economy turns.

@servermaker: I somewhat agree, but most of the world's economy is built on debt of some kind. The key is to be wise about it. I imagine you bought a house and didn't pay cash. Good or bad? Good, if you bought a house that is within your means. Bad if you bought the biggest house the bank would let you "afford." The same holds true for business.

[humanssssss]

Greed is good. It is the basis of the capitalistic system. In it, greed is controlled by competitive forces that will drive greed to zero profit. Only people who are ignorant of economic would say greed is bad. Without greed, we all would be not doing work and allow the government to feed us. That was the problem with communist ideology, they believe in a classless society, that the mean of production should be own by the state, and the state would equally distribute it. This kind of ideology creates a disincentive for people to work, thus lowered economic growth. Happened to Vietnam and China. If you read your history, China and Vietnam were quasi-capitalism until the communist revolution begin to take hold. Since these countries abandon communism and accept capitalism, they've experienced tremendous economic growth.

Greed is good.

[odubtaig]

You need to look up the definition of 'greed'. The word 'excessive' features.