The interview discusses the differences in going large, raising venture capital, capturing millions of eye balls in order to monetise the business vs starting small, boot strapping and focusing on the product until it leads to profitability allowing the business to sustain itself without external funding. Both Jason and David have great points and we agree with both sides of the argument. Going for funding and the "swing for the fences" approach which Jason describes, has led to the hallmark YouTubes, Facebooks etc but also a string of other recent startups such as Posterous, Ustream and Mint of which have created game changing innovative products with global impact and their accelerated growth may not have been possible without going down the funding route.
However, as David points out the clusters of successes are merely "powerballs" in the wider lottery and does not reflect the thousands of other startups which fail by following the same model. The key takeaway from David's viewpoint is putting aside the VC, revenue, market share, pageviews, media and hype does your product create enough value that customers are willing to pay more than it takes to create and sustain it or in other words Accounting 101 Revenue - Expenses = Profit. This puts your product under the microscope on how much customer value you can create and focus on scalability which is a good lesson for any business.
Without further ado here is the full video the interview segment starts after the 47 minute mark:
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