All tagged The pursuit of growth
There’s a mythology that's built up around the idea of growth that’s only accelerated in this age of on-demand news and ubiquitous social media.
We’re so enamored by the pursuit of growth (and scaling and valuations) that we discount those who aren’t interested in that ethos. That the idea of lifestyle businesses and staying “small” is a “settling” of sorts. That not growing is a failure of some sort - of the idea, the offering and the entrepreneur.
“Is a dream alive if it don’t come true, or is it something worse?”
I’ve been thinking a lot about Bruce’s words from The River. There’s a gravity in them - a sense of frustration, but more than that, a sense of finality and hopelessness.
Now, I know the specifics of that song and the context within which he sang those words, but as with all things Bruce, his words apply to so much of how we live our lives and the paths we choose to take and the people we choose to love.
The recent WeWork debacle is an incredible business story that MBA students will be dissecting and analyzing for years to come.
How could a company that was expecting one of the richest, most high profile IPOs of recent times now be on the verge of bankruptcy - in barely a couple of months?
It seemed to have all the ingredients you’d want - a flamboyant founder who would often walk around Manhattan barefoot, a lofty mission about elevating our consciousness, a truly differentiated product offering and marketing buzz that the most storied brands would kill for.
We’re in a business environment that, for the most part, is fixated on growth. One that values year over year, double and triple digit revenue increases as absolutely essential to being considered a “successful” company, to not be considered a failure.
In particular, if the organization is funded, that’s almost always a base level expectation. You aren’t being funded to simply create a going concern, you’ve been given a charter to create something transformative, huge, the next proverbial unicorn. (The more prominent the funders, the more prominent this expectation becomes.)
