One of my favorite business school memories was of a case protagonist who spoke to my entrepreneurial management class. His company did something unfathomably unsexy. Maybe they made aglets (the plastic tip of shoelaces) or something like that.

But the market was so unsexy that no one else was in it. They had excellent profit margins, great work-life balance for all employees, and he pocketed the profits every year.

For an hour and 20 minutes, a bunch of 26-year-old HBS students discussed how he should reinvest profits, borrow money for leverage, expand his market presence, adopt new product lines, roll-up his industry, divest underperforming product lines, yada yada yada.

When it was finally his turn, he got up and stood there quietly. Then he said:

"I take home $4 million after tax and work about 20 hours a week. What, my friends, is so wrong with that picture that I need the stress, complexity, and risk of all this growth.

"Do any of you make that kind of money? Do you have any concept of whether that's enough to have the life you want?

"Come talk to me once you're at that level, and I'll listen seriously to your recommendations." That comment has stayed with me for 36 years as our entrepreneurial-industrial complex has normalized talk of billion-dollar valuations, and neglected value creation at smaller scales.