Venture Hacks Revisited: Startups Are Here to Save the World

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Fourteen years ago, AngelList co-founders Naval Ravikant and Babak Nivi launched Venture Hacks—a blog dedicated to startup advice. A lot has changed in the world of startups and venture since their first blog post, but many of the ideas shared on Venture Hacks remain timeless. We’re resharing some of Naval and Babak's more influential posts in hopes that the lessons and insights can inspire a new generation of founders and investors. These blog posts are being republished in their entirety with minimal edits.

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This article was published on February 7, 2013

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“He cares deeply about…the advancement of humankind, and putting the right tools in their hands.” — Laurene Powell Jobs on her husband, Steve

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Startups aren’t here to change the world, they’re here to save the world—by bringing us innovation that advances humankind.

Our universities, labs, and garages create enormous amounts of innovation—and there’s more coming every day. Today’s challenge is delivering it to customers in ways that advance humankind.

Super Companies

Apple, Google, Facebook, and Amazon all deliver innovation at scale: They reliably bring it to the whole world at once. I call them super companies. And there are many more in information technology, hardware, healthcare, and energy.*

It might seem impossibly difficult, but super companies can be built. And the only way they get built is by starting a startup.

Our Duty

If super companies are saving the world, and every company started as a startup, then it’s our moral duty to remove the frictions along the startup’s way.

That’s our duty at AngelList: to serve the startups that are saving the world. By eliminating the frictions along their way, in the most meaningful way possible.

It is also the duty of every service provider in the startup ecosystem: investors, incubators, advisors, lawyers, recruiters, etc.

Entrepreneurs

If the service provider’s duty is to eliminate the frictions in the startup’s journey, then it’s the entrepreneur’s duty to only start companies that can make a meaningful contribution to the advancement of humankind. That means saying no to businesses that are the internet equivalent of McDonald’s.

And it’s our duty as entrepreneurs to never sell, shut down, or give up until we’re delivering innovation at scale.

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Read the original post here.

*A lot has changed in the fourteen years since Venture Hacks first published this post. The conversations around startups, technology, and the role these types of companies play in our broader society have become both more nuanced and more critical. We still believe startups are here to save the world and recognize that to do so, these startups must also be good corporate citizens.