Exactly. Founders tend to think that the holy grail is going public but then you'd have to worry about shareholders and short term growth. It would be perfectl

Exactly. Founders tend to think that the holy grail is going public but then you'd have to worry about shareholders and short term growth. It would be perfectly fine to stop right before going public and run the company the way you wanted. Cargill is a private company with $67B in revenue in 2004 so it's not a question of generating the money (http://www.forbes.com/lists/2005/21/5ZUZ.html http://www.forbes.com/lists/2005/21/5ZUZ.html).