There was a time—not long ago—when I believed growth was the only thing that mattered. Not profitability. Not sustainability. Not even basic logic. Just growth. User growth. Revenue growth. “We’re growing faster than we can handle” growth. The kind of growth that makes executives smile like they just discovered fire, while quietly setting the building on it. I didn’t just believe in growth—I worshipped it. If a company was growing at 40%, I was interested. If it was growing at 60%, I was excited. If it was growing at 100%, I was emotionally invested in ways that should probably be discussed with a professional. And then something happened. The growth… slowed. The Moment Growth Betrayed Me It always starts the same way. A company reports earnings. Everything looks fine—until you hit the one number that matters. Growth. And suddenly, it’s not 60% anymore. It’s 25%. And that 25%—which, in any normal universe, would be considered absurdly good—feels like a personal attack....
I used to think growth stocks were the rock stars of the market—loud, reckless, overhyped, and somehow always one earnings call away from either superstardom or total collapse. You didn’t buy them for stability. You bought them for the story. The vision. The disruption. The intoxicating promise that this company is going to change everything. And for a while, that was enough. But somewhere along the way—somewhere between the 10th “adjusted EBITDA” explanation and the 47th “we’re prioritizing growth over profitability” speech—I started to notice something strange. The disruptors were growing up. And not in a glamorous, headline-grabbing way. No. They were turning into something far more interesting. They were becoming… cash machines. The Fantasy Phase: Growth at All Costs (And I Mean All Costs) Let’s rewind to the beginning—the part investors love to romanticize. This is the phase where growth stocks are all potential and no responsibility. Revenue is exploding. Margins ar...