If you want to be able to retain ethics, among other things make sure not to take the company public. Then you’re basically legally required to drop ethics in favor of profits.

Also don’t take investment from anyone who isn’t fully aligned ethically. Be skeptical of promises from people you don’t personally know extremely well.

That may limit you to slower growth, or cap your growth (fine if you want to run a company and take home $2M/ye from it; not fine if you want to be acquired for $100M and retire.) It may also limit you to taking out loans to fund growth that you can’t bootstrap to, which is a different kind of risky.