On a podcast the other day, Ben Thompson made the point that Meta (Facebook) has taken a lot of heat in that they haven't innovated and built a great new product in a long time. Sure, they have Instagram and WhatsApp, but those were acquisitions, they didn't build those products themselves.

He made the point that the mistake wasn't that Meta didn't create great new products; it's that they even tried.

Thompson noted that creating big, new products that scale is not only extremely difficult but also almost never works. Of all the ideas that new founders have and that existing companies try, very, very, very few make it. A better strategy for a mature and cash-flush company like Meta is to let its innovative employees leave, raise venture capital, build great products, and acquire the ones that work.

This last point is so important and can’t be overstated. Startups have such an advantage when it comes to innovation.

1/ They have full focus from their best people. When companies get big they have so many competing priorities that have nothing to do with innovation. I imagine a top 3 priority for Meta right now is dealing with international regulators. What an incredible distraction that no startup has to deal with.
2/ Failure isn’t an option. If a product leader inside a large company fails they move on to the next thing. If a startup fails, the company dies.
3/ They have unlimited freedom. They’re not constrained by customer commitments or burdens and processes and systems that were setup in the past. They have full freedom to be flexible and innovate.

All of this is to make a larger point. You have to know who you are. I see this challenge a lot with companies that succeeded through the low interest rate period and are looking to get back to high growth. They look at Rule of 40 and say, let's get to 30% growth and 10% operating margin because investors still favor growth companies over profit-focused companies. Related, see this great chart from Logan Bartlett at Redpoint. It shows the multiple of the importance of growth vs. profitability. In February of this year, the market valued a point of growth 2.9x more than a point of free cash flow. Obviously, it's nothing like it was in 2021, but you can see that investors are still very growth-focused.

Boards and leadership teams know this and are setting their companies up to plug into higher valuations. But, many of those companies have saturated the market for their core products and don't have a great second act. It's time for many of these companies to flip the switch to a focus on EBITDA and free cash flows.

Obviously, every company is different. And if you have a great idea and a great team that can execute on innovative growth and the management capacity to go all in and the risk appetite for it, then, by all means, go for it. But remember that we all have egos, and it’s easy to get caught up in what’s exciting versus what we’re capable of and what’s best for the company. We all want to be on the growth side of Rule of 40. Operational efficiency isn't as exciting as launching a giant new product. That's a lot more fun, and you'll get a lot more credit. But it might not be right for you right now.

You have to know who you are.