[b112]

There is no such difference.

A company is not a person, and can literally have its entire staff changed in short order. Or be bought.

Companies have no morals. Sometimes people in companies do, but again, that person can vanish instantly.

You should treat a company as a person which may receive a brain transplant at any time. Most especially, when writing contracts or having any expectation of what that company will do.

[potato3732842]

This is an exceptionally ignorant viewpoint.

A business that is privately owned, is run by its founders and which represents the lion's share of its officers income and net worth can be dealt with like any other small business.

Some guy who makes bespoke firmware for industrial microcontrollers or very niche audio encoding software isn't Microsoft. You won't be able to do business with him in a useful way if you treat him like Microsoft.

[scarface_74]

If the business is run by its founders and has taken VC funding, the founder’s “values” no longer matters.

[bee_rider]

There exist companies which have taken VC money, and others which haven’t. We’ve carved out one exception, but this doesn’t indicate that small personally-run companies can’t exist, right?

[Spooky23]

The key is contract. Casual chat with a corporate representative who isn’t selling you something about something you own requires some sort of contractual relationship and consideration.

[thfuran]

A sole proprietorship pretty much is a person.

[mindcrime]

Or a single member LLC.