http://www.apocalypse.org/pub/u/kjc/cool/Card.on.Software.html
I see a lot of truth in this, from bitter experience.
How Software Companies Die
He's sorta onto something. I think it's simply a painful task to get even a modestly sized group of people all thinking on the same page in even the most controlled of circumstances. There are people who happen to be very good at doing it, though. They are few and far between. They also tend to care about shit they probably shouldn't & hence feel too readily the utter hopelessness that ultimately sets in when the number of employees at your company reaches some certain critical mass (typically at too rapid a pace, as well). The bloat of the bureaucracy then tends to inflate until it suffocates everyone.
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Well, as companies get larger (Microsoft), the money earned by an individual's great idea is shared by more and more people, and the person with the great idea gets a small percentage of the value of the idea.
So people with great ideas leave and make their own companies.
So people with great ideas leave and make their own companies.
It's not me, it's someone else.