The thing is that "feature creep" is a symptom rather than cause.

"Feature creep" in a small company is a sign of flailing around trying to capture a market. Sometimes a whole new feature is developed under pressure from Sales to land a big whale client, or a desperate CEO who thinks runaway success is just that one key feature away.

In a big company feature creep may be the result of a corporate culture that doles out promotions and bonuses for building shiny new things rather than the boring work of maintaining old things. Google is a good example of this, only with entire new services rather than features.

Either way feature creep is symptomatic of deeper problems with a company, regardless of size.