It seems to me that most companies start to gain a tedious/conventional/corporate atmosphere once they get to more than, I don't know exactly, somewhere in 100-

It seems to me that most companies start to gain a tedious/conventional/corporate atmosphere once they get to more than, I don't know exactly, somewhere in 100-400 employees. At that point the company has acquired, in addition to those who care purely about building companies and building software and building hardware and physical processes, a middle layer of conventional auxiliary staff, and nice though everybody may be, the company just becomes a standard corporate office environment. Many people (especially those who have enjoyed academic environments) strongly don't like such atmospheres, and for those many people this is a pretty strong incentive to work at small companies.