JetBlue caught a lot of flack today for announcing that they are adding checked bag fees and less legroom for passengers. This was done in response to Wall Street analysts who had been hounding them for the past year or two to maximize profits. The issue reached a tipping point when their CEO, David Barger, was fired. Barger was said to have spent to much time trying to preserve the brand values that made JetBlue a big success a decade ago.
Phrased differently, JetBlue fired their CEO because he was trying to maintain the great customer experience that brought them success in the first place, relative to the rest of the airline industry which generally treats passengers like dirt..
It's situations like these when I can understand why so many tech companies are hesitant to go public. All of a sudden you have thousands of people telling you how to run your business, a majority of who probably don't even use your product or service. And for companies that are already fighting intense regulatory battles around the world like AirBnb and Uber I understand why they would raise huge rounds in the private market at massive valuations. While it is important for theses companies to realize that going public is the next step in the process of building a great long lasting company its also important to make sure they have tons of safeguards in place to make sure they don't lose whatever secret ingredients made them great in the first place.