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Comment by Zambyte | Hacker News Reader

Why is "growing" always the goal? Why not go on sustaining?

Because sustaining is a job, and it's a very hard job. The shareholders might not like that job or want to do a different one, or they just can't do it. Or the market is going down, but someone could use the IP/assets/team.

> Because sustaining is a job, and it's a very hard job.

... and infinite growth is neither of those?

Who said infinite? Startup founders that got investments have designed the exit points based on market conditions, and nobody would trust "infinite". It's just like stock investments (unless you "invest" based on feelings, of course) - you calculate the risk, the potential, and then you decide. Nobody reasonable puts "infinite growth" into their Excel sheets.

And yes, growing until that exit point is a lot of work - so it makes total sense people want an exit at some point.

The market expects infinite growth. Imagine what would happen if a publicly-traded company announced that they would stop pursuing growth.

No, that's not true. There are plenty of stable market capitalization, dividend-generating public companies. Their cap-to-EBITDA ratio is much smaller, but that doesn't change the fact.

Of course everybody expects the company to take advantage of opportunities - but it has to make economical sense. Nobody wants their company to try to grow so hard the whole company crashes.

Of course it doesn't expect infinite growth. Companies _aim_ for it, but nobody expects them to do it.

> Why is "growing" always the goal? Why not go on sustaining?

We're talking about a nascent field. Sustaining means holding the status quo while others lap you in capability and cost.

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