[TeMPOraL]

After reading countless stories about companies big and small, I came to conclusion that if you want to build a company that has a mission and/or a moral compass, under no circumstances you should ever give any degree of control to people who are not in on the mission or do not share the same moral direction. From this follow at least two rules:

1) Never ever go public.

2) Never ever accept VC money.

Problem is, you'll likely get outcompeted by companies that do either or both of these things.

[tim333]

There are public companies that are run for the long term. Berkshire Hathaway springs to mind and I'm sure there are many others. It's down to the CEO whether they do that or try to game the quarterly earnings.