When did they stop teaching this in Startup School? It should be in the first and last courses you take.
1) Visionary Founder creates Magical Startup™.
2) Magical Startup™ experiences explosive growth.
3) Big Corporation® throws mountains of money at Visionary Founder, while cooing “you will keep control… you will keep control…”
4) Visionary Founder sells Magical Startup™ to Big Corporation® and becomes insanely rich.
5) Magical Startup™ is shuttered. Hundreds of millions of users’ voices suddenly cry out in terror and are suddenly silenced.
6) Big Corporation® welcomes Visionary Founder to their corporate headquarters, locks the door behind Visionary Founder, and turns off the lights.
7) A shot rings out.
8) The lights come back on, and Visionary Founder’s Dream is found lying on the beautiful parquet floor, bleeding, dead.
9) Visionary Founder is shocked and appalled.
10) Big Corporation® pushes Visionary Founder – wearing a Golden Parachute – from top floor of Big Corporation® headquarters.
11) Big Corporation® dissects Visionary Founder’s dead Dream, removing vital organs and clumsily transplanting them into their machinery.
12) Big Corporation® users are confused by the appearance of yet another new feature that no one asked for, but which some begrudgingly use.
13) Big Corporation® shareholders see an extra penny in their next dividend check.
14) Repeat.
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