Technolgy Entrepreneurship: Build a Business or Wealth?

In beginning any business venture there appear to be two distinct objectives that tend to guide the entrepreneur:

1. Become fabulously wealthy.
2. Build a wildly popular and innovative product or service.

As I have gone about this myself I am always surprised that many people are keen to figure out to which category I see myself belonging. It isn't something that I've thought about much before I started getting this question from others. Greater minds than mine have looked at this question and come up with their own answers. Here's a quote from Vinod Khosla (you should read the brief article from which the quote is taken):

"95 percent of people in the venture business think it’s a financial business, it’s about investing. It’s not. It’s about building companies, which is a different thing than investing. It’s about taking large risks in science and technology."

Now that I have thought about I find that I am more in the second camp than the first, though achieving both would be great. Ultimately though I don't think it's a question with a right or wrong answer, or even one that is terribly germane. I believe a entrepreneur, when successful, achieves both objectives no matter which one predominates in his or her thinking.

Any successful business in the technology field, especially if the product or service is truly innovative, has the potential to realize outsized returns for investors, founders and also the employees. After all, it is one that is well-received by the market. So then does it even matter whether the original intent is to build wealth or something innovative?

Perhaps it does, if the objective is poorly understood and acted upon. It is very possible to build a popular service, for example Twitter, yet have no clear path to achieving wealth. If the focus is too much on building wealth, it can lead to self-deception and short-term destructive behaviour such as lying to customers and investors. Neither of these strategies is a good bet. I would therefore say that no matter which mindset sets the entrepreneur going, both objectives must be kept firmly in sight. That kind of thinking works wonders.

I could give countless examples, but why do that when you can do it for yourself. Look at the entrepreneurs that started great technology companies and you'll see both objectives at work. Perhaps not in their original intent, but along the way both emerge. Give it a try.