Why or how is it that a company can be successful without making money (or, creating value)? If you sell your company to Google or Oracle or whoever, then you're a success. You've created an entity that creates value enough for another entity to spend $$$ for what you've created. Similarly, if you create an entity that creates value so that consumers or other businesses purchase your product so much so that you can cover the costs to create that product, you're a success. This is business success.

The notion of winning a venture round = business success is still being carried over from the internet bubble of 2001 and the sooner it dies the better off entrepreneurs and vc's will be.

Great thoughts and would love to connect sometime.

What exactly does “best start-up” mean? All start-ups are businesses and the primary function of a business is to generate profits. By that handy measure, you can judge all companies regardless of sector or country by objective criteria. The Wall Street Journal and other media publish quarterly rankings of investment banks for various categories (M&A; IPO's) – there's no awards show – it's simply a list in descending order of which banks have had the biggest deal flow. [ex.http://www.thedeal.com/dealscape/2008/04/ma_quarterly_report_investment.php]

Admittedly, this is not practical in the world of private start-ups, which do not generally disclose financial information.

Still, in what business-minded universe does Mark Zuckerberg, of money-losing Facebook, come out ahead of Tony Hsieh, of profit-generating Zappos, as best CEO?

I could go through the list and attack the void of meaning within most of the award categories. Only a few of the awards make any obvious sense to me (e.g., best design).

There are other criteria besides profits by which to judge a company (e.g., design) but if that's the case – you need to state the criteria. To define the category in general terms, e.g., “Best Mobile Start-Up”, and not have the criterion be profits either a) misconstrues the business of business or b) allows the judges to frame their own definitions and criteria, thereby rendering the results meaningless.

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Also, agreed – the hermetic geographic scope is almost comical. Looks like a Bay area circle jerk.