David Heinemeier Hansson, inventor of Ruby on Rails (something you might of heard of) in response to Paul Graham:
Getting your company to the point where you can pay yourself a decent salary is a great milestone. You created something sustainable that doesn’t rely on spending other people’s money. You deserve to pop a bottle and celebrate!
You certainly shouldn’t curb your ambitions because of that, though. The real economic pay-off for taking the risk of starting a business is what comes after this.
More on: You don’t have to sell your company to have financial security and the freedom to do what you want…
Paul Graham and the venerable asshole DHH are basically espousing the same thing: creating a profitable business. If you like operating the business, keep doing it and outsource the boring stuff if you wanna. If you want to and can cash out and move on to something else, that’s a great achievement as well. Both these guys have been wildly successful in their own ways, so I don’t see it as an either/or scenerio really.
Personally I’d rather be Paul Graham; he’s much more rich and a better writer to boot.
That’s a really good point. However, I personally favor DHH’s approach to business, as this is exactly how I see my own endeavors playing out. Though, I wouldn’t necessarily say that PG is endorsing profitable business per se. Companies built to flip are fine, but they aren’t the kind of company I would want to create or work for.
From da PG essay:
You can choose whichever revenue strategy you think is best for the type of company you’re starting, so long as you’re profitable.
I stand corrected. Booya~!
thats really awesome post really.