Growth of the Corporation

Most good businesses start from a hope, an idea, a need, a cause, something that needs improved, something fun to do with some friends... Many fail, some live, and very few thrive. Really thrive. You look at Facebook, Amazon, Google, The North Face, <insert company name> and you see a similar story. Starting with fun, with a need, something that needs improved, a cause... These few that thrive seem to consistently enter the abyss of corporate greed. The people that formed the cause, the improvement, solved the need, built the cause; they sell or morph from entrepreneurs and visionaries into corporate robotics backed by armies of MBA's with "process", "efficiencies", "mechanisms"

...money. Somewhere in the middle it is lost. Companies introduce "vision statements", "leadership principles", or whatever the hell they want to call them. But it is lost... Don't get me wrong, they are often very good at what they do, but at what expense? North Face? Owned by VF Corp... A huge corporate entity that really doesn't care. Facebook... Is that a post or an ad for the next speaker system? "Going public! We will all be rich."

Send me back in time man...