What's wrong with having a small or medium company? Why must a company sell its soul for the chance of becoming a money-printing behemoth in the future?

I understand that being small leaves you vulnerable to the predatory tactics of big players, but I see that as a consequence of lax regulation. There are too many mono/duopolies already, and the bigger they get, the harder it will be to split them apart.

> but we see over and over that it isn't what the market wants.

What the market wants is short term growth and I firmly believe that is what is destroying our economy and the market.

Instead of building pillars and companies that outlive the founders, we have short term cash grabs. We have VC firms buying up our existing pillars, gutting them of any valuable assets, saddling them with debt, and then selling off the carcass. We have firms buying up real estate and creating or exacerbating scarcity to drive up demand and prices. We have shifts towards subscriptions and quarterly profits.

It's not healthy and it's destroying us.

> revenue now is just a $2bn

"only" $2bn ? this is bizarre to see discussed without question

> They're revenue now is just a $2bn

And has been growing 30% YoY for the last 3~4 years alone. This is unheard of in any other industry/market.

Their FCF is also impressive.

Hmm, good analysis.

This phenomenon might to some degree be a function of the board’s veto power over the CEO. A primary reason you typically go public is to grow, so by default at IPO you’re a “growth stock”. But from that point on, its difficult to ever make a transition to a steady, sustainable “dividend stock”, especially as a tech company. If you try to, the stock will tank, all the “growth” investors will get mad and you (the CEO) will probably get fired by the board, and they’ll bring in a new “growth” CEO.

Fundamentally, why would someone buy a stock of a company that doesn’t eventually make a profit or offer some sort of dividend? Seems like Atlassian traded profit for staying power, but can they leverage that staying power to bring value to their investors?