I can’t imagine anything less interesting in business than maximizing shareholder value. Yet this is what public companies are pressured — if not legally required — to do. A lot of non-public companies follow the same path towards performance and results.To take it further, maximization as a concept just isn’t interesting to me. I don’t care about maximization. Not maximization of profit, revenue, people, reach, productivity, etc. Not interesting.I feel like this makes me an outcast in the business world. Part of the minority, the ones who simply “don’t get how it works”.I get how it works. I just don’t care. I’m not interested in squeezing something so tight that I get every last drop. I don’t want, need, or care about every last drop. Those last drops usually don’t taste as good anyway. My thirst is usually well quenched far before that final drop.

When I hear people say things like “our goal is to be at 5mm ARR by 2024” I always get a little sad and uncomfortable. I don’t have quantifiable goals like that. And if I do, any number I choose feels arbitrary. My goals are usually more qualitative - to create simple, delightful products that are meaningful for the people they serve, to create dig

When I hear people say things like “our goal is to be at 5mm ARR by 2024” I always get a little sad and uncomfortable. I don’t have quantifiable goals like that. And if I do, any number I choose feels arbitrary. My goals are usually more qualitative - to create simple, delightful products that are meaningful for the people they serve, to create dig

“People effectively are laser focused on the things they can get bollocked for. And it's much, much easier to get bollocked for being illogical than it is to get bollocked for being unimaginative.

You can't bollock

So many business leaders and entrepreneurs started with the dictum: "bigger and better"

I want to have a company with 200 people, 300 people. I want to be growing my company and scaling it and then selling it and exiting.

And that's right for some people, but the number of individuals I've worked with who along the way have realized, actually, that