[sliverstorm]

My first thought is, you don't have to grow like wildfire. From what I've seen, operations that stay smaller, tend to avoid stagnation.

Of course, I suppose keeping your company modestly sized does stand in the way of securing your "cool billion", which is apparently the minimum take for anybody who is anybody?

[mattzito]

It really depends on your industry/vertical. It's true, small companies can remain more agile, but they're also far more vulnerable to change - when it's three friends who run a software development shop, and one of them decides they want to strike out on their own, that's a huge upheaval for the organization. Plus, they tend to have a smaller customer base to draw from, or a smaller set of products on offer, all of which increase the long-term vulnerability.

Snark about the "minimum take" aside, everyone has different priorities. If you're a good businessperson with a good idea, there's no reason that you can't bootstrap a small business that makes you $400k/year for a number of years, which I think most people would agree is a pretty decent living.