To a point. Startups aren't about wielding totalitarian power. The crappy ones are more about the short con of trading lottery tickets (options) for labor, and using the myth of magical genius to sell stakes to bookies and rubes.

There are great businesses out there that respond to real market needs, but a lot of tech companies only seem to exist in the window of lag between collapsing marginal cost and eventual market saturation.

Yes, but the difference is that a business's success requires continual voluntary mutually-beneficial exchanges (aka sales). And before they make a profit, they're only risking money that's theirs to risk. None of these things are true about politics, which is fundamentally about control of coercive power.

Calling attention the differences is not particularly insightful (Who in their right mind would compare startups to dictatorships to imply that they are one and the same).

But Seiji's calling attention to the similarities provides good insights.

Also the difference you list is not actually that much of a difference. Sure, politics is about control of coercive power, but so are businesses (especially the most succesful ones). Politics is also about negotiations, deals, showmanship, exchanges for mutual benefit(unless you are naive about how politics really works) - aka sales. Furthermore both radical movements and startups need to fund-raise and rally volunteers during their early days, and both do so on little more than the promise of dreams.

They are both equally unlikely to succeed. But when they do, their impact is profound (often one is profoundly good and the other is profoundly bad). I could think of more going down the tangent created by the parent.

You both have good points. Seiji point though is very unusual and affects us all directly, as such it deserves setious consideration.