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Comment by chillacy | Hacker News Reader

> Are there any good examples of publicly traded companies which have lasted a long time (more than a few decades) with minimal impact of the "we have to keep growing" mindset?

Are there publicly traded companies which _didn't_ have a thirst for growth? By definition, companies which go to the lengths of raising money on the stock exchange are exactly those who grew beyond small business / private equity levels. So this question seems paradoxical to me.

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I should have worded it differently: what I was trying to ask was - publicly traded companies by definition have to keep growing and have the "we have to keep growing" mindset, and this often negatively impacts the products eg- facebook showing ads way too often, collecting more user data and it's parly driven by the desire to keep growing and earning more ad dollars. Fb is a perfect example of a product going downhill as it grows. Are there companies which continue to make products loved by users even though they have the "we have to keep growing" mindset? One example was Apple, but they are starting to faulter, increasing prices way too much. Some gaming studios are publicly traded and seem to be doing fine. The WWE company also seems to be doing fine. I'm looking for such examples but companies which have been around longer than that.

what about public companies that pay dividends?

I see, something like sacrificing long term viability for short term growth? Since jacking prices may give you a great quarter but destroy your brand in the long run.

My understanding is that big value stocks which pay dividend have less pressure to grow, while growth stocks use growth rate to justify their extreme PE ratios, and so might seek it more.

You could look at it more like their are companies like Ford that look a very long time to build a supply chain and distribution network that may have hammered long term innovation thinking, innovation is required to sustain growth over very long periods of time, and many huge companies either don't focus on that because of other business complexities, or because the supply chain is so tight it's very hard to undo and re-tool to innovate.

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