You’d also expect that class of people to be more risk-averse, since altruistic returns to money are near-linear on relevant scales at least according to some worldviews, while selfish returns are sharply diminishing (perhaps logarithmic?).
It’s been a while since I have delved into the topic, so take this with a grain of salt:
Because of the heavy influence of VCs who follow a hits-based model, startup founders are often forced to aim for 1B+ companies because they lost control of the board, even if they themselves would prefer the higher chances of success with a <1B company. That is to say, there are more people and startups going for the (close to) linear utility curve than you would expect based on founders’ motivations alone. How strong that effect is I cannot say.
Thanks for pointing this out! Hadn’t known about this, though it totally makes sense in retrospect that markets would find some way of partially cancelling that inefficiency. I’ve added an edit to the post.
It’s been a while since I have delved into the topic, so take this with a grain of salt:
Because of the heavy influence of VCs who follow a hits-based model, startup founders are often forced to aim for 1B+ companies because they lost control of the board, even if they themselves would prefer the higher chances of success with a <1B company. That is to say, there are more people and startups going for the (close to) linear utility curve than you would expect based on founders’ motivations alone. How strong that effect is I cannot say.
This conflict appears well known, see here for a serious treatment and here for a more humorous one.
Thanks for pointing this out! Hadn’t known about this, though it totally makes sense in retrospect that markets would find some way of partially cancelling that inefficiency. I’ve added an edit to the post.