It was nice knowing Raspberry Pi while they lasted. Going to suck losing something that has changed the homegrown embedded system hobby forever.
Mostly that IPOs put companies into ‘infinite growth mode’ which is obviously impossible, so their product just degrades over time. They can’t just do ‘good enough’ anymore.
Also the reason why every company that is consistently ‘good’ is run privately. If you answer to nobody but yourself you have a lot more room for long term plans
The real sad thing is that you and the person you replied to are talking like “publicly traded” and “private” are the only two options, because worker cooperatives are so rare everybody forgets about them.
For me anything “private” just means you can’t buy shares publicly. Worker cooperatives would be included in that (since you need to be a worker to own a “share”)
Costco might be an exception here, though may degrade once the leading team dies or exits.
Just because you are private, doesn’t mean that you answer only to yourself. It depends on how the company is structured and what shares (if any) the leadership holds. In some cases it can be worse because the person who has the shares to force you to do what they want will be able to keep their position without any oversight. Boards in public trades companies are at least public.
Discord is a great example of this. They are privately held and their quality is starting to go down.
