This is really an instance of the general phenomenon that the eminent tend to take fewer risks. A change that decreases revenue isn't necessarily bad; it may ev

This is really an instance of the general phenomenon that the eminent tend to take fewer risks. A change that decreases revenue isn't necessarily bad; it may even yield a net profit in the long run. It's just perceived as a risk because things like user happiness and product culture (a) can't be as easily measured and (b) don't yield results for a while. I think this is actually a rational-- or at least natural-- course of action. As you get more eminent, the stakes are also higher, and when you have more to lose you tend to take less risk. In fact, it'd be surprising if a big company continued taking risks by trusting non-structural decisions. This is probably related to the phenomenon that large organizations tend to fall into bureaucracy. In fact the two questions are probably overlapping, if not identical. How can you grow big and famous and take on big responsibilities without losing your ability to trust your intuition and care about the feel and usability of the product? How can you stop yourself from degenerating into bureaucracy? I'm pretty confident it's possible. Steve Jobs managed it. My own hunch is that the trick is to hire people who don't care about money too much. The kind of people who think, if we lose a bit of revenue, who cares? Which is paradoxical, my hunch continues, because people like this will eventually make better products in the long run, and end up increasing revenue in a thousand different little ways.