There is a telling paragraph at the end of the first chapter of "Seattle and the Demons of Ambition: A Love Story" written by Fred Moody (same guy who wrote "I Sing the Body Electric") that speaks to the question of how revolutionary, young startups are often perceived and actually change once they become the incumbents they sought to replace, having succeeded in their quests to radically transform the marketplace:
"I was standing within canister's throw of four Northwest companies - Nordstrom, Nike, Starbucks, and AT&T Wireless that had all at one time been brash, romantic startups determined to rebel against the status quo in their businesses and deliver something previously forbidden to the beleaguered and deprived consumer-citizen. Now, all four were reviled as oppressors of customers, competitors, employees, former employees, contracted third-world employees, or all of the above. I remembered too that Microsoft, Amazon.com, and McCaw Cellular (before AT&T bought it and turned it into AT&T Wireless) had once been popular Seattle startups, freedom fighters in the corporate age, wresting power over information and communication from the hands of previously indomitable corporations and putting it in those of ordinary citizens."
It's an interesting point that Moody makes and I think it can be broadened outside of the Northwest. In the same way people forget that every religion was once a cult, people often forget that virtually every large company that people so despise for one reason or another was once a revolutionary startup cheered on by the masses to replace the incumbents that came before them.
In many cases, I think, it's the story of youthful idealism being corrupted by the forces of power and greed and the way companies are perceived aptly mirrors the reality of the situation. Think Walmart, Microsoft (at least leading up to the antitrust case), Enron, and so forth.
But then there are the other cases, where perceptions are misaligned with the reality on the ground. Take Amazon, for example, a company I happen to work for. There is a lot of resentment by people against Amazon because they have supposedly driven many small bookstore owners out of business. But what these people may not realize is that they allow businesses of any size to sell their products on Amazon's website so a customer can choose to buy a book (or any other product) directly from Amazon or alternatively pay a lower price for a used or new one from a small mom and pop. Perhaps Amazon is evil in other ways I am unaware (that they have flaws is not in question), but at least in this regard there is a large gap between perception and reality.
