Comment by alain94040
15 years ago
Even if they grow, eventually they'll be too big to remain the "friendly cool kid next door."
With 20,000 employees, it's just not the same.
Either way, you can't expect a founder to stick around for 30 years with the same company and product. It takes a Steve Jobs to keep things interesting over decades.
I think you just nailed why so many modern companies suck.
100 years ago you put your name on the company and treated it's performance as your personal reputation (for better or for worse). Today the most common "strategy" is to build something just good enough that you can attract enough customers to generate a revenue stream that is interesting to someone else, and then wash your hands of it.
This punishes everyone who was willing to suffer with you while you worked out the kinks.
I'm sorry but the whole thing just seems too "deadbeat dad" to me.