Small businesses are usually the norm. But HackerNews, tech, the whole Bay Area is head-over-heels for the growth business, the make-it-rich-quick business, so the small lifestyle business concept is the outsider in this world.
I'd also argue that a small business is just a business where the goal is to provide goods or services to customers and work to employees, whereas a lifestyle business has a strong focus on creating and maintaining a good work-life balance for everyone. Which means in our case reinvesting the profit in our team's happiness.
Happiness: happiness being a very abstract word that I chose on purpose. Because it means different things for different people and it also changes over time.
There are relatively few people who would leave their well paying corporate job with benefits and stability to found a startup with a small chance of being very rich, and even fewer who would leave to start a small company with next to zero chance of becoming rich
the whole Bay Area is head-over-heels for the growth business
Right, that's it's uniquely identifying characteristic. Literally that's why people come to SV, do to that kind of business. It's self selection. If you come to the valley you are trying to build/join an insane rocket ship. I mean that's what VC and the last 30 years SV is all about.
so the small lifestyle business concept is the outsider in this world.
Ok, and? Is there some lack of knowledge that there are businesses that aren't hyperscale? I can't imagine.
Because Silicon Valley is so associated with tech, it's easy to forget there are tech businesses that aren't head-over-heels for the growth business. Similar to video games, you forget its possible to have a work/life balance because so many video game companies don't have it.
