This paragraph is basically the whole point of the post:
When you’re working on a project, you can experiment with ideas for a long time. When you have a company, the clock is ticking and people expect results. This gets to the danger with projects—a lot of people use them as an excuse to not work very hard. If you don’t have the self-discipline to work hard without external pressure, projects can be a license to slack off.
The idea that people were calling his startup a project instead of a company irked him because he perceived that, in their minds, they were putting his startup in the category of things people pursue without any intent of completing or being accountable for. That's how most people regard their projects: as hobbies.
That's at least what I was thinking to myself. The reaction I had when reading this essay was to think to myself "well, how do you expect to be taken seriously if it's not something you intend to deliver and be responsible for," but then he delivered this gem above.
The company doesn't deliver that level of intention, you have to generate it. Once you have it, the company is just a legal entity, and if you don't have it then no amount of incorporation, schedules, meetings etc is going to compensate for that.
When you’re working on a project, you can experiment with ideas for a long time. When you have a company, the clock is ticking and people expect results. This gets to the danger with projects—a lot of people use them as an excuse to not work very hard. If you don’t have the self-discipline to work hard without external pressure, projects can be a license to slack off.
The idea that people were calling his startup a project instead of a company irked him because he perceived that, in their minds, they were putting his startup in the category of things people pursue without any intent of completing or being accountable for. That's how most people regard their projects: as hobbies.
That's at least what I was thinking to myself. The reaction I had when reading this essay was to think to myself "well, how do you expect to be taken seriously if it's not something you intend to deliver and be responsible for," but then he delivered this gem above.
The company doesn't deliver that level of intention, you have to generate it. Once you have it, the company is just a legal entity, and if you don't have it then no amount of incorporation, schedules, meetings etc is going to compensate for that.