Anil and Sunil Varanasi at Meter fit this archetype, too. For my Deep Dive on Meter, I asked Anil what made building the company fun for him: The word he used was “ expansiveness .”

At their best, companies are machines for doing the stuff a founder really wants to do, but bigger, with other people who want to do it too.

But it does have to be big enough to remain endlessly fascinating and continue to expand for the decades it takes to build something truly important.

You have the right to work only but never to its fruits.

Let not the fruits of action be your motive, nor let your attachment be to inaction.