"Apple's goal isn't to make money. Our goal is to design and develop and bring to market good products...

We trust as a consequence of that, people will like them, and as another consequence we'll make some money. But we're really clear about what our goals are....

We try not to bring out another product that's just different... 'Different' and 'new' is relatively easy. Doing something that's genuinely better is very hard."

That's Jonathan Ive, Apple Inc Senior Vice President and Design Guru, quoted from a recent Business Week interview.

I love it.

Does your company have the guts for this? Would you have the cajones to waltz in to your VC pitch and them "we're not trying to make money here, what we are trying to do is build something amazing." Sure some of them may laugh you at of the room, but I suspect for many, this might earn you more of their time. We should all take a lesson from Apple on this one. Even if you don't believe them on this particular point of their company philosophy, having a sort of guiding principal like this can be super helpful. How clear are you about your goals?