Very silly to call every non start up a lifestyle business. It’s just a business. Start up are the weird thing that almost always an obscene waste of time and money, but sometime creates google.
The advantage to a PBC is protecting founders from a serious problem with standard corporations: you might bring on investors who could subsequently demand you pollute, exploit people, and/or do other immoral activities for profit. You don't have to do these things to grow a business quickly.
I’d like to provide maybe a clarification here that there is zero existing fiduciary duty in regular corporations to say yes to evil things, or even to turn a profit at all. A for-profit C corporation can legally sell stock, lose money every year, and go out of business, if the board of directors approves that strategy. Fiduciary duty exists primarily in areas of accurate communication and the avoidance of crime, fraud, etc.
A B corp basically is a C corp, but one that has formally published that their strategy includes a commitment to some social benefit. But if a C corp wanted to publish the same message to shareholders it could, and shareholder recourse would basically be to either try to replace the board, or sell the stock.
Consider the eBay/Craigslist case, eBay Domestic Holdings v. Newmark:
> When director decisions are reviewed under the business judgment rule, this Court will not question rational judgments about how promoting non-stockholder interests—be it through making a charitable contribution, paying employees higher salaries and benefits, or more general norms like promoting a particular corporate culture—ultimately promote stockholder value. Under the Unocal standard, however, the directors must act within the range of reasonableness. Ultimately, defendants failed to prove that craigslist possesses a palpable, distinctive, and advantageous culture that sufficiently promotes stockholder value to support the indefinite implementation of a poison pill. Jim and Craig did not make any serious attempt to prove that the craigslist culture, which rejects any attempt to further monetize its services, translates into increased profitability for stockholders.
https://courts.delaware.gov/Opinions/Download.aspx?id=143440
This is where a PBC would have been different. With a PBC, courts are directed to balance the the stockholders interests with the company's stated public benefit.
Why is that so? Fast growth, when achieved honestly, is a result of solving user pain that others haven't. Maybe you think so because users != the public, but I think in totality the public is a collection of users who all have needs they want met.
Why? Because investors poured a bunch of money in to support fast growth and now they want their money back. And incremental growth won't do. Since 9 out of 10 of the investments fail, the surviving one has to continue to growth-hacking revenues.
They're also incredibly productive and can build/deliver really good stuff, so who knows :)