Having the right long term vision helps. A friend of mine wrote to Google in 1998, offering to help them "pretty up" their homepage, and they wrote back saying

Having the right long term vision helps. A friend of mine wrote to Google in 1998, offering to help them "pretty up" their homepage, and they wrote back saying they wanted to preserve a clean, fast experience, etc etc. Exactly what they're still saying today. Then there's this pretty extraordinary interview which lays down exactly what they've followed up with: http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/09/googles_first_steps.html http://www.ubergizmo.com/15/archives/2008/09/googles_first_s...