What Entrepreneurs Can Learn from Big Companies

Only recently, just before the pandemic, it seemed big companies were on a roll. A few "superstar" companies were dominating software industries and reaching their tentacles into multiple sectors. Market share was concentrated in much of the economy, the performance gap between large and small companies was widening and people were forming fewer new businesses. An article in Harvard Business Review reported concerns that "a lack of competition was strangling the U.S. economy."

Many of those worries have begun to fade. We're seeing a historic surge in new business creation and a shrinking performance gap between big and small businesses. The pandemic, with its "Great Resignation" and "Quiet Quitting," was only a catalyst, accelerating an inevitable change — inevitable because that's the nature of large organizations. They can't sustain dominance for long, and indeed the profitability and longevity of big companies have been shrinking for decades. The superstar companies, now suffering from depressed stock prices, are laying off thousands of talented employees, giving way to smaller firms that are still hiring.