> the right thing ... will likely take a long time and you’ll face a lot of criticism.
Is this true, empirically, for the most successful companies? Of the "Frightful 5" (Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft), only Microsoft seems to have had an extended period of only modest success before rocketing into the stratosphere. The others did so in just a couple of years.
That depends on how you define the beginning of the company. For example, Zuckerberg had built quite a few different "social" websites before building Thefacebook. Jobs and Woz had been building circuit boards and other electronic devices for a couple years before they built the Apple I.
Is this true, empirically, for the most successful companies? Of the "Frightful 5" (Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft), only Microsoft seems to have had an extended period of only modest success before rocketing into the stratosphere. The others did so in just a couple of years.