Silicon Valley is a place where founders need to be reassured that building a company that's profitable instead of being valued at around $100m before liquidation preferences etc are considered is nothing to be ashamed of :)

I don't think the article is about founders needing reassurance or emotional support. It's advice for founders to navigate the dynamic with investors that are pushing them to go for a bigger outcome.

Or perhaps we can just stop referring to them as "medium success" companies. "Medium success" for whom?

$100M in revenue/year to anyone but a very very small percentage of people in the world is a wildly successful business you just built.

Article speaks about $100M valuation. It's much different from $100M/year.

It doesn't have to be the main focus of the article for it to be revealing about silicon valley and the author.

You mean the readers?

All three. A half-time locker room pep talk gives information about the coach, the players, and football culture generally.

You're missing the point. This was written for folks who have already raised at least a seed round.

But, are there so many thousands of those types of people that it needs to be broadcast as a blog post?

I mean, couldn't he walk around the halls of YC and pat a few people on the shoulder and say that same thing?

Not trying to be facetious.

> Are there so many thousands of those types of people that it needs to be broadcast as a blog post?

Yes. There are a ton of SaaS startups with two or three clients each paying a few hundred thousands of dollars per year. This is the area where it doesn't make sense to shut down the business because with even a couple more clients it would be worth $20M+, but where even if you could it probably wouldn't make sense to raise money.

For people who have already put in the 10+ years to develop the skillset to build a huge company (e.g. learned marketing, coding, sales, etc.), this may actually be the most common outcome.

The point is that once you raise even a seed round you're now a wealth manager who is getting judged on your ability to generate IRR and cash-on-cash return and liquidity, not just your ability to make something cool and use it to support yourself. Yes, starting a $100M business is impressive, but once you decide you want to be in the business of being a wealth manager then it becomes a means to an end rather than being the end goal itself.