[techadv]

This is probably a cognitive bias obtained from reading the industry trade press.

There's a notable alternative -- you don't have a meteoric rise to giant status, but you also don't collapse. These sorts of "happy medium" companies are in the vast majority even in our industry, but they're less likely to end up on the front page of a news feed, esp. those biased toward the fast growth (startup) community.

Also, you forgot the last stage. After becoming super rich, the CEO gets inspired by something other than heading up a vilified corporation, then goes off and founds a foundation that does great humanitarian work. Now that the company is not on top and the founder is doing exclusively good stuff for humanity, no one hates either anymore :-)

edit: fixed pronouns and adjectives because it pointed ambiguously in the sentence.

[peaton]

Ah yes, I forgot about Gates. (And Elon, and a number of other such CEOs I'm sure.) Good call!

But you're definitely completely right about medium-sized companies. I had totally forgotten about that category.

[pjmorris]

Not just Gates. Rockefeller, Sloan, Carnegie, all of whom Gates is emulating. It's a grand American tradition.