[virmundi]

Public share holders are, statistically, unwashed masses [1]. It's a bunch of quants that look at your P/E Ratio, earnings, etc to figure out if you're a good bet. If not quants, they're just people following some stock trend and bitching when it doesn't move up all the time. Few people take the time to get to know your business, your goals and your history. It's this lack of insight and depth that's led to the problem that modern companies have, which is only looking out for this and the next quarters' profits.

We see it with Amazon. That company has goals. It has expensive goals. Sometimes it doesn't make money for a few quarters. Ever damn time there is minor hullabaloo about how Amazon needs to focus on making money. They should cut jobs. Get more automation. Stop working in various Cloud offerings. Reduce their R&D. All of this is because a company shouldn't, apparently, focus on 5 to 10 year plans.

If I ever get out of my depression and really work on my startup, I won't IPO on anything that I actually care about. I'll plow through the early years living like a college student on Ramen if I have to. Then the company is mine to do with as I please. I know that there will be policies that won't please the market (for example 10% of the net to charity, primarily local to Palatka and Putnam county Fl).

I'm glad to see a possible trend in the tech industry of becoming entrepreneurs rather than rock stars. Don't get me wrong, I bet fame and its trappings are fun. Unfortunately they don't seem to really benefit the company or the product.

1 - https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/unwashed_masses