“Don’t be evil” – the pretty used up corporate mantra of Google, that was polished once and for all when they let the world know that they will not tolerate what they had to endure with China. A few days ago, Google posted a blog post on their official company blog about the incidents that took place in China and their reaction to it: they will stop censoring search results within China or if they are not allowed to, will withdraw from doing business there.

Pulling out from one of the world’s largest growth markets due to your beliefs and core values in the face of millions of euros in profits? Not many companies have the guts to do so. Corporations are in place, because they are to provide value to their owners. Fred Wilson describes brave companies with the Founder Factor that other companies run by hired management teams don’t have. Having read his post I realised, some of the most intriguing and interesting companies for me pretty much all have their founders running the game.

By Founder Factor Fred Wilson describes companies that have their founders running the company or taking part in key decisions.

I’m a capitalist in my heart, however – I would like to see the system improve somewhat to the direction of the founder factor where the original company mantra is carried on towards the future generations instead of trying to cash in at all costs. To be honest, many of the companies being lead by their founder(s) are one of the most successful ones financially also and for a reason – consumers relate to the ones that share their values. Money in itself has only intrinsic value.