Indeed, if you view humans as resources (HR!), it's a terrible waste of potential. One less cow in the meat grinder, if you will. I don't measure my value by the thickness of my wallet or the growth of my assets.

And what of the open source technology example? Are those people striving to be average, settling, or wasting their potential? Are they not extraordinary? That's only one of countless world-changing pursuits not focused on growing a business like a tumor, which I've selected because it is quite relevant to this website's users.

So, under this reasoning, you are saying all bootstrapped entrepreneurs are average and a waste of life, simply because they choose to go it alone, and not take funding. Hmm, what was that? Something about man, made of out straw...

I'm saying the value will begin to go up as soon as the mindset isn't "30 hours and a good salary". "Expected value" of startups is all about how much money an exit gets you, not the salary you get along the way.

I think its awesome you are self-employed, but as far I am concerned it isn't a startup in the sense I think of them, geared for massive growth.

This exemplifies what bothers me about pieces of the startup community. The focus on building something that can grow as fast as possible and be sold for as much money as possible- with lasting value and long-term prospects of the business not even on the radar. Sometimes it almost tastes like your garden variety scam.

I don't have a problem with growth, or with exits, but I'm not a fan of what I'll call the house-of-cards startup model.

Do you think that is a marker for success in life? A photo sharing app 'geared for massive growth'?

That's essentially what Facebook is. I'm not sure what you mean by "a marker for success in life," but most people consider Mark Zuckerberg to be successful.

I consider Zuckerberg to be rich. As far as I can tell from his and FB's public-facing personas, he's a failure at the things that really matter -- integrity, positive impact on others, respect of peers for anything other than wealth acquisition.

If you're actually arguing that FB doesn't have a positive impact on people, you are so far off the mark that you can't be reasoned with. You might be able to argue about Zuckerberg's methods, but the end result is that he created something that made hundreds of millions of people's lives better. Unless you've done the same, you don't really have the moral high ground here.

I'll ignore the ad hominem and the argument by implied assertion and assume that we have different definitions of "making people's lives better". What's yours?

I'm not attacking you personally, I just can't grasp your argument. I would think we could take as a given that most Facebook users would say Facebook makes their life better by allowing them to keep in touch with friends, etc. Again, you could argue that Facebook's management has done business in a way you don't approve of, but Facebook the product has undoubtedly had a net positive impact on hundreds of millions of people all over the world, not to mention the thousands of entrepreneurs and businesses that are building on top of the platform.

Studies show Facebook has created over 500,000 high level, high paying jobs.

This is a social network for God's sake, not a coal mine.

it is one marker of success. being utterly and fervently in love with one's work is another, and this may or may not coincide with massive growth. dmor is correct that life is short; given that "making a dent in the universe" is kind of relative (see this excellent piece on our small ness: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4674932) and some times more ego-driven than altruistic, I see no shame in optimizing for happiness in one's lifetime. For some people this may simply mean a decent salary (which may not be an "average" goal for some people), but this was not how I read this piece. The OP appears to have found her own way to do something she loves, profitably and within a short amount of time. This is fantastic. VCs may not want to fund her, and it doesn't look like she wants them to. pg points out businesses like this in his growth essay with no judgment. I wouldn't pass them either.

One could argue that Facebook's success still remains to be seen. Yes, it captured the masses quickly - but its long term viability has yet to be solidified. It hasn't quite found its business model and the rapid declines of social networks have been well documented. See Myspace...