And plenty of these plumbers and barbers and cafes probably do great work and treat their employees well. Do you really want to read articles about all of them? I don't. What makes a company newsworthy (unless it's as a case study) is its size, or potential size.

In his books he develops a very humanistic look at the role of businesses in our lives. As entrepreneurs, employees, and as customers. I won't be able to do the ideas justice here, but I will try:

A business obsessed with revenue and growth is like a person obsessed with how many breaths they have taken, or how much food is in their pantry -- these are means to an end, not ends in themselves. Food is required for life but it's not the purpose of living. Businesses as conceived by Semler and Fried aren't designed to maximize revenue so much as make the world a better place (#include your essay about google being almost a nonprofit).

It may be that stories of plumbers, barbers, and cafes wouldn't be interesting to you. I like to hear about people living enjoyable lives, delighting their customers, and making their corner of the universe a better place. It's a lot more psychically healthy than reading about people trying to gain the most while providing the least (the tech crunch articles Jason refers to)

So many people seem obsessed with getting a large quantity of money, and only then trying their hand at building a fulfilling life. I have always thought of Semler as running things in reverse: how do we design a seven day weekend that is cash positive?

(Semler's book, The Seven Day Weekend, is highly recommended to anyone who wants to hear more)

then "But articles of that type are case studies, not news"

first "Do you really want to read articles about all of them? I don't."

then "I've been running one for the past 7 years. And I'm interested in reading about others."

I think what you want is for Jason to have said "I wish the technical community were focused on case studies of awesome companies rather than news stories about funding and growth." Which I think he would agree with, and would remove your points.

(Not that case study vs news is a real dichotomy -- what's stopping someone from calling news about a round of funding a "case study about getting funding"? Why can't there be news stories about how awesome the customer experience at X has gotten?)

In fact, we see case studies as news (and even less-than-news) all day long here and elsewhere. You can tell by the titles that generally come from blogs and usually look clickbait-y: "How Company/Developer X achieved goal Y," "Why Language Z helped us triple our revenues," etc.

"Why can't there be news stories about how awesome the customer experience at X has gotten?": If you really want to know, I advise you to read "Storytelling: Branding in practice".

You are logically incorrect. Well, by your own logic. How can you publish news about a current event? To be written as news it has to be happened in the past.

I believe that businesses in this space are run with old-fashioned tools (management methods, process optimisation techniques, technology) for reasons of tradition and lack of information sharing rather than anything inherent to the businesses themselves. My experiences with business growth accelerators leads me to believe we as a community re-invent the wheel an enormous amount, and anything that helps me reduce that is of interest.

Sure, we have a different metric for success, but that doesn't mean there aren't unusually successful small businesses (that will remain comparatively small) that might have something interesting to say.

I myself side with the 37 signals guys that profit is king, but that takes nothing away from my friends that are in start ups chasing big coin.

Either is a viable strategy and i think it's terrible that this community doesnt allow both to co-exist as viable options.

I think it does. There are many of us that are focused on either lifestyle or profit-driven businesses and those articles are often received well. What isn't are articles attacking the funded companies' approach.

Companies would also pick vendors based on financial stability, for which profit is probably a major factor, although cash in the bank would also be.

Or maybe it would happen if investment rules relaxed and private equity (Private Equity or direct investment like second market in non-public companies) happened, as communicating financials to lots of investors would still be relevant.

Personally I believe there are many great lessons to be learned from those local/profitable businesses which if written I'd gladly consume. If the press would only dig for those types of stories I'm sure they would come back up with gold.

As an entrepreneur who is interested in growing a long lasting and sustainable business there are many lessons which I can imagine a seasoned business owner, no matter the market, could teach me (i.e,: how had they dealt with times of feast as well famine. What was it like when they had they'r first repeat customer, etc.).

"What makes a company newsworthy (unless it's as a case study) is its size, or potential size."

To be honest I believe this sums Jason's point in one line.

The current tech culture doesn't seem to acknowledge nor celebrate the stories of those founders, entrepreneurs, developers, or business minds whose offerings are geared towards providing impecable customer service; so that doesn't get written about fairly frequently.

Now I may be wrong in my observations but it would seem as if this current generation of the tech vanguard simply aren't interested in those things. The signal, which has become an ever increasing continuous one, seems to be about more, more and bigger, bigger, bigger.

Hey, maybe that's all there is to it, but I'd like to believe we've got much more in us than simply who can amass the largest seed round, or who has had their Series A round over subscribed.

Again, I may be wrong but just a thought.

The real world is a better movie. Real people, real work, real life make for interesting stories. I would much rather read about healthy business, regardless of size, than sizeable business, regardless of health. Jason Fried was on target.

Although one part of me says that the message is good, the other part says - why dont they publish their size? Like you rightly said, the value that many people would attribute to their words would vary based on size.

And the other thing is, many of these concepts that they tout might only work for a particular size. that is another reason we need to know how big they are.

What makes a company "newsworthy" is a good PR firm!