Why start-ups can win: the key metric is raw number of employees that care about the long-term company

number of employees of a well-run 100-person start-up that care about the long-term company: 60

number employees of a 10,000-person company that care about the long-term company: 6

this is why start-ups can win.

This is why they do win.

The biggest predictor of whether a company will be an important company in the next ten years is the raw number of employees that really want that company to win. Not the percentage of employees, but the actual raw number.

This is why organizations with a large shared mission do so well. Some large organizations that will certainly still be important in the future include Apple, Esri, and the U.S. Military. These large organizations are the exceptions as they have a true share mission.

But most 10,000 person organizations have, at most, a handful of people who truly care about the long-term outlook of the organization.

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