I know we're all quick to jump down the throats of these companies and demand innovation, but staying static might be for really good reasons.

When you go public, that's generally not a sign of weakness. Going public is a huge, excellent thing for a company, which tends to mean "hot damn, people wanna get in on this idea!" It means you've made it as a business. If your public offering goes well, you are successful and that is awesome.

So, now you're a successful company. Great! You should definitely innovate and change and seek new opportunities, right?

Wrong!

Well, not necessarily wrong, but it makes a lot more sense to move slowly when you're successful than you might think.

Let's talk about Magic: The Gathering for a second. In competitive Magic, there is a skill to determining "who is the aggro." This means figuring out which player you are- the control or the aggro. Many beginning/amateur players think that if you're playing a burn deck which deals direct damage to your opponent then you must be the aggressive deck and if you're playing a lot of control spells which prevent your opponent from doing anything you must be the control deck.

But in fact, figuring out who is the aggro and who is the control is about finding out which player wins if the game keeps going the way it is. If I'm playing my burn deck, but I have a creature that can attack for 3 damage a turn and my opponent can't do much about it, then even though I seem like an aggressive deck, I am the control, because I can just wait and win. The aggressor has to be the one to create the change in the game, to upset things in order to gain the advantage.

But if the aggressor does gain the advantage, they do not have to push it- if they become the control, then they should play it safe and let their opponent scrabble to try to get back into it, to make strikes only when they are guaranteed to either preserve the game state or secure victory.

In effect, when you go from being a wiley startup which needs to compete with the old money companies to being a publicly traded company you transition from being the aggro- who seeks change in order to profit- to the control -who is already ahead and will continue to profit if nothing changes.

Is this a naive way of seeing things? Yes. I just related MNCs to a trading card game. But I think you'll find that if your options are 1) Do nothing to make money or 2) Do something to make money The strategic bet is on #2. Money for nothing is always a good deal!

Anyways, something to think about.