[jusben1369]

Hah. I think patio11 just joined Stripe, one of the fastest growing startups around :) Anyway, besides many of the usual answers, talent is a key one often forgotten. People want the chance to do new and ever changing things so as to be challenged. It's hard to retain good people when they know it's going to be a smaller company with modest growth. What often kills companies with slowish growth is that they lose their best people to other companies with a more dynamic environment.

[user5994461]

> What often kills companies with slowish growth is that they lose their best people to other companies with a more dynamic environment.

Till the best people get tired of stuff everchanging and breaking, combined with the lack of resources and the 70 hours startup week.

Then they drop the 'dynamic environment' and come back to Big Goompany :D

[krinchan]

I can't tell you how true this is. A lot of my friends still in the startup world call me a "burn out" and accuse me of having "no ambition."

Yeah, I have no ambition. Yet I can totally take a week off and head to Puerto Rico. Not only does the world not end, but I don't get called with an emergency while I'm hiking through the rainforest to find a swimming hole.

I get to go out every weekend. I go out on Sundays. I go out whenever. I pretty much key in 40 hours and work 35 hours a week (10 a.m. to 5 or 6).

Yeah, maybe I don't get paid above $200,000, but my life is straight out of some Oprah "Live your best life" book. So bite me. I'll take no ambition over that startup life any day.