All too true. The biggest challenge Google is struggling through right now is that it's not just impractical, but dangerous for it to continue to behave like a small and scrappy startup.
Behavior patterns that are beneficial for a small company are harmful to a big company. To give a concrete example, "move fast and break things" is fine when you have 100 people relying on you, and should probably be sanctionable (though, in our industry, it is often not outside the context of contracts and pre-arranged agreements) when you have 2 billion people using your system several dozen times a day for critical information, where their lives are materially negatively impacted if that information is false or out-dated.
Behavior patterns that are beneficial for a small company are harmful to a big company. To give a concrete example, "move fast and break things" is fine when you have 100 people relying on you, and should probably be sanctionable (though, in our industry, it is often not outside the context of contracts and pre-arranged agreements) when you have 2 billion people using your system several dozen times a day for critical information, where their lives are materially negatively impacted if that information is false or out-dated.