Thanks for the useful account of the discussion.

I think it's important to note, however, that in my view talking about "exit strategy" or "legacy" is more than semantic. They are very different things. You quote Rusty as saying he doesn't know of any startup outside indie news that doesn't determine its exit strategy up front. I don't think he's spent all that much time around startups.

There are, certainly, plenty of startups that obsess about exit strategy. They're the ones that leap into a bubble with a clear goal, whether it's to do a quick IPO or get acquired by Google/Facebook/Cisco. It's the startup equivalent of the people who flipped houses during the real estate bubble.

My point, when we spoke at CJET, is that the businesses most of us really admire were created with absolutely no thoughts about exit strategy. Do you think Adolph Ochs thought about exit strategy when he started The New York Times? What about the Google guys? Zuck? Jack and Biz with Twitter? I could go on. It's my conviction that focusing on exit strategy is incompatible with creating an enduring business.