When a Company Gets Too Big: Size as Disadvantage
There is a moment in the life of every successful company when the thing that made it great – growth – starts working against it. Not because the company got worse. Not because management suddenly became incompetent. But because the math changed. When you are a $50 million business, doubling revenue means finding another $50 million. Hard, but doable. When you are a $300 billion business, growing 15% means conjuring $45 billion in new revenue out of thin air. That is roughly the entire annual revenue of a company like AMD. Every year. From scratch. The law of large numbers is not a theory. It is gravity. And the bigger you get, the harder it pulls.