The decision to sell to Microsoft may have been conscious, but what about all of the other decisions that got them to the point where they could get a big sale? I'm talking about the years prior of building and selling Minecraft. I don't think those decisions were made with a billion dollar exit in mind -- and really those are the ones that count the most.

The point is not that they decided "we are going to be a billion dollar company" and then chased it to get the MSFT acquisition. It's that when given options about which way to take it they took the Billion dollar route consciously instead of choosing to not sell and stay small - which again is how I read the article to promote.

When talking about startups "a billion dollar company" usually means valuation. Considering Mojangs profitability they were probably a billion dollar company in early 2012.

That's just how it was sold for billions. Mojang was built into a massively profitable company without ever really intending to do that.

The decision to sell was a result of the valuation not the reason for it.