[autonomousErwin]

This is a great read and exactly where I think the global economy is going - instead of large companies you'll have millions of medium sized businesses run by small teams still making a bit of a dent in their own niche universe.

I do disagree with the work-life balance part, I struggle to see how you can build something (and maintain it at such a high level) without intense focus and commitment.

[lnsru]

The global economy is going towards winners and dinosaurs. Just watch the semiconductor industry. Eat or be eaten. There were much more smaller companies providing different parts 2 decades ago. NEC, Hitachi, Altium were eaten by Renesas. Intel history of acquisitions is very long. Every current major corporation has a massive list of acquisitions.

Basically the same story with food corporations. Dozen companies provide food for whole western world. Cars? Toyota, Stellantis and Volkswagen with their sub-brands provide cars.

Economy of scale is the thing. And it will kill Mittelstand. It’s already happening. Large purchasing power gives another price during negotiations. Same sales people will sell dozens of products instead of mittelstand’s speciality. You only need accounting once. As well as HR. The Mittelstand must be very highly specialized to be untouched by global mega corporations. There is also no life-work balance in the process when working with mega corporation. It will squeeze the resources out of Mittelstand just by the size difference. The Mittelstand I work for is already lost with all the EU paperwork providing reach, rohs, sustainability and battery Verordnung documents to the customers.

[tonyedgecombe]

>This is a great read and exactly where I think the global economy is going - instead of large companies you'll have millions of medium sized businesses run by small teams still making a bit of a dent in their own niche universe.

I'd love to see that but the trend is in the opposite direction. It's not just technology either, there has been consolidation across most industries.

[hkt]

I suspect the winner takes all nature of the economy might lead to a lot of those smaller companies getting borged, if they're even a little bit interesting and profitable.