[menloparkbum]

Yahoo! became a business by accident. Apple was started by a guy who wanted to make the best personal computers, and Microsoft was started by a guy who wanted to put a computer in every home and on every desktop.

In the Apple/Microsoft initial period, there were plenty of smaller competitors who wanted to slowly sell stuff to hobbyists and "expand naturally" and none of those companies exist anymore.

[aswanson]

d Microsoft was started by a guy who wanted to put a computer in every home and on every desktop

There were no desktops when Microsoft started. There was the Altair, and they started by writing a basic for it. The market was not planetary as it is now.

Apple was started by a guy who wanted to make the best personal computers

Woz was making computers for himself and to show off at homebrew. From his own words, the Apple I was a PC board they sold to hobbyists for $40 apiece after manufacturing them for $20, per Jobs's egging. You're probably right about Yahoo, but MSFT and APPL did not start out as global reach companies. They started out as local restaurants.

[menloparkbum]

I'd love to be able to know exactly what Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were thinking when they started their respective companies, but I'm pretty sure they had bigger designs than what you're suggesting.

[aswanson]

You're probably right, as my psychic abilities and time travel skills have been failing of late...I can't imagine any rational business owner not wanting as much money and market share as possible. I know I do.

[wensing]

Well, as long as "as much money and market share as possible" doesn't equate to "growing as fast as possible." There are plenty of 'conservative' businesses that avoid growing fast like the plague. Risk management and all that.