"I think that companies always become complacent, over time. Or most companies, that is"
About this Quote
Complacency is the quiet killer O'Reilly is really naming here: not a dramatic collapse, but the slow drift from curiosity to bureaucracy. Coming from a publisher-turned-tech oracle, the line lands less like a management platitude and more like a field report from Silicon Valley’s boom-and-bust weather. He’s spent decades watching companies that once defined the future start defending the past, mistaking market dominance for proof of continued relevance.
The phrasing matters. "I think" softens the claim just enough to sound observational rather than accusatory, the tone of someone describing gravity. Then he widens it to "companies" and immediately narrows it with "Or most companies, that is" - a small rhetorical escape hatch that does real work. It signals he isn’t preaching inevitability; he’s issuing a challenge. There are exceptions, and the whole point is to ask: will you be one?
Subtext: innovation is not a permanent identity; it’s a practice that has to be protected from success. The larger a firm gets, the more it hires to reduce risk, standardize decisions, and optimize for the current revenue engine. Those are rational moves that quietly train people not to experiment. O'Reilly’s career context - open-source advocacy, the "Web 2.0" era, the constant churn of platform shifts - makes the line feel like a warning to both founders and incumbents: the default setting of institutional life is self-satisfaction, and you have to actively design against it.
The phrasing matters. "I think" softens the claim just enough to sound observational rather than accusatory, the tone of someone describing gravity. Then he widens it to "companies" and immediately narrows it with "Or most companies, that is" - a small rhetorical escape hatch that does real work. It signals he isn’t preaching inevitability; he’s issuing a challenge. There are exceptions, and the whole point is to ask: will you be one?
Subtext: innovation is not a permanent identity; it’s a practice that has to be protected from success. The larger a firm gets, the more it hires to reduce risk, standardize decisions, and optimize for the current revenue engine. Those are rational moves that quietly train people not to experiment. O'Reilly’s career context - open-source advocacy, the "Web 2.0" era, the constant churn of platform shifts - makes the line feel like a warning to both founders and incumbents: the default setting of institutional life is self-satisfaction, and you have to actively design against it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Business |
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