The VC-Funded Company Is an Obsolete Organizational Form
selfonomics.com
selfonomics.com
In general I don’t agree. I think the author is severely discounting the impact of VC. But I do agree it’s probably never been easier to run a legitimate business with 1-a few people.
Feels like a naive view of capital. If your direct competitor has $10M they are most likely going to beat you because more resources are generally better than less. If I can out market you it often doesn’t matter that your product is superior.
VC doesn't want a startup to become just a healthy business. It needs to grow at a breakneck speed. In fact, for a VC, it's better to put pressure on somewhat successful startups to take a moonshot at becoming unicorns, even at the grave risk of going bust instead.
The expectation to spend the funding round in 12-18 months is a well-established pattern. So you get millions, but you have to spend it fast.
Running a product development consultancy, I routinely see products/businesses that could have been built for a fraction of what they cost. You don't need to hire hundreds of developers (pre-2026) and instantly have huge misalignment and coordination issues. You don't need to tokenmaxx the crap of everything (2026), ballooning your AI spend and generating a ton of bloat. That is, unless someone pressures you to spend fast because it's their shot at you becoming a unicorn.