[pwthornton]

If you keep losing customers, market share, and mind share, eventually, you won't have a company. Basecamp went from being an industry-leading product to pretty much something that legacy customers too afraid to switch are still using.

You don't need investors to care about the long-term health of your company.

[ElevenLathe]

I think this is another case of mistaking a metaphor for actual reality. A company has no "health". This is a metaphor. If the people who constitute a company care whether or not it has customers, market share, "mind share", or about "having a company", then of course they should pursue the things that will make those goals happen. "having a company" is just one of many goals the people who make up the company might or might not have. The "one man shop" of someone close to retirement might be winding down and therefore not care about acquiring new customers. Maybe the people of the company would rather do something else and don't want to be bothered selling it -- fine, close it down and do something else. Serving the company itself is just serving Moloch, in my opinion. Always remind yourself that its just people.