[corford]

It may not be a conscious conspiracy by the big boys but the reality of the startup scene isn't too far from what he describes.

Edit: I'd also say that a certain section of startups are in on the game too - how many startups can you recall where their sole raison d'être and exit strategy was to be acquired by Google, Facebook or Apple? The dropboxes and facebooks of the startup world are much more rare.

[lallysingh]

Indeed. A lot of it comes from the lack of other exit-options. Large companies aren't cool anymore, so nobody wants their startup to become one --- that's just a means to the end of a big payout. Getting acquired is substantially less work than being a full-on success, and avoids a lot of the drudgework of the middle/large-stage parts of a company's lifecycle.

Back a dozen years ago (omg, has it really been that long now?), you'd IPO and use all that new money to hire people to take care of the actual business management for you. A founder could get back to hacking on new, fun stuff, or let his board bribe him to step down :-)