I didn't find that to be a very intelligent article. Two of the examples he picked, Microsoft and Intel, were way,way, way beyond "start-up" by the time they peaked in 2000. MSFT went public in early/mid 80s and I think Intel in the early 70s. Both of which would have been exceptional investments had you invested when they were early in their growth curves. Same with Cisco, Oracle, Amazon, Google... Just another example of someone confusing financial metrics for an actual business