It looks like a cycle. Come up with new product with a small team, add more employees, add more managers, add more cruft, slow down.
Then a startup comes along, moving faster, innovating faster, disrupting until it grows and starts to add more employees, add more managers, add more cruft, slow down.
And Then a startup comes along ......
Big companies buy 'disrupters' when they fear their market share is at risk. But most of the time their market share is not at risk, and they should just wait for X startup to crumble.
Yep. I can see why they don't wait for them to crumble though. What if they don't? That's a big risk to take.
When a potentially disruptive product gets bought, it virtually always means death of the product. You get fed a line about how it's going to keep going, and then a few months down the line, it has all been integrated into some existing big company product.
What's sad to think about is that sure, a lot of these companies would have failed, but how many would have succeeded? We'll never know. I don't blame founders: it's pretty hard to say no to a mountain of cash when your future is so uncertain. But deep down, I still wish more would take the gamble.