People who have mission and vision of the future are entrepreneurs because they want to solve problems and help other people not because they want to become rich and sail with yacht.
Listen to Snapchat's founder and CEO Evan Spiegel[0] why he didn't sell to Facebook for $3 billion. He even didn't sell to Google which offered 10x more ($30bn) for Snapchat.
To clarify, I actually kind of get it for businesses that actually have a important mission (using my definition of important of course). If you’re working on curing cancer, I would understand that a CEO doesn’t want to leave even if he’s set for life. I just don’t see entertainment and service businesses like Snapchat or Dropbox as actually meaningful endeavors. To me they are nice to have and something I would work at for money, but I wouldn’t feel like I’m making the world a better place. Maybe that’s exactly the thing I was misunderstanding about those CEOs, they truly think their work is needed and important for the world.
Listen to Snapchat's founder and CEO Evan Spiegel[0] why he didn't sell to Facebook for $3 billion. He even didn't sell to Google which offered 10x more ($30bn) for Snapchat.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVu6M72XWUI