I'm not so sure. Maintaining and building an empire are dramatically different. Companies that could build and not maintain: Lotus, Digital Research, Palm, Net

I'm not so sure. Maintaining and building an empire are dramatically different. Companies that could build and not maintain: Lotus, Digital Research, Palm, Netscape, MySpace, Digg, Blackberry, Ashton Tate, it's a different set of skills. Heck, you can even toss the French Jacobins in there They all shot themselves in the foot, I know, that's the point. Not having their eye on the ball and instead looking over the horizon is what built the empire, but then the ball hit their nose Some people can do both (gates, zuck, bezos), but once you're at the Apple/Microsoft stage, you need the second group.