This is why, although I am a great believer in giving people independence and fostering their entrepreneurial impulses, I see that they need a strong leader to guide the process if they hope to succeed big. An army must have a commanding general; you just can’t fight a war by committee. Corporate politics inherently creates CEOs who aren’t true visionary leaders. Visionary leaders do not micromanage and take over their managers’ jobs. What they do is let everyone know that the company has a clear direction and see that it moves that way. This frees up everyone else to really do the job of running the company.

In those few instances where a small firm somehow crashes through the many natural obstacles that exist and, still led by its founder, becomes an industry leader, the firm will usually go on to totally dominate its field. Such is clearly the case with Microsoft. This company is virtually unstoppable, and it’s not just because it has a lock on computer operating systems. It’s because Bill Gates has a clear vision of where the industry is going and how he plans to master it, and there’s no uncertainty about which goals are going to be pursued. I hope we’re on the road to being such a firm.

A general and an army, no matter how formidable, are nothing without supplies and ammunition. History has taught repeatedly that the side that can keep providing the most on the home front wins. In reality, Rommel and the Nazi army were probably superior to Eisenhower and the Allies as far as military strategy goes. It is ultimately the productive capacity of the United States, “the arsenal of democracy,” and not the genius of our generals, that turned the tide of battle and won the war. In business this ammunition is called money, and you better have plenty of it if you’re going up against the giants. Nowadays, the only way to initially raise the kind of money we’re talking about is to go public.

Going public, though, is not as easy as it sounds. We had made moves several times over the years to start the process of going public, only to get shut down before we even started.

The story was always the same. We were too small or our business was too inherently risky. We didn’t have the proper business systems in place. If only we had just a little longer operating history. Not only this, but we were told going public would be a long and arduous process, so why not try to get “quick money” privately?

Finally, however, we looked around and said, hey, a lot of companies who are going public are no bigger than us. In fact, a lot of them are in the same exact business we’re in. The only difference is they now have tens of millions of dollars to grow with and we don’t. If we’re going to be a great company, we can’t keep living hand-to-mouth. We need some real capital to play in the big leagues. Our investors were thrilled, and so my partner Howie Balter and I decided we were going to do whatever we had to in order to go public. And that was that.

Deciding to go public is sort of like deciding to get married. You can’t do it alone. You need to have an underwriter to go public with. The underwriter is a large Wall Street investment firm with a sales force and a research team that can help you to sell an equity interest—stock—in your company. And just like there are all kinds of potential spouses out there, there are all kinds of underwriters as well. There are desirable ones who will help you get huge market valuations and support your stock price for years to come, and there are undesirable ones who will do everything in a small-time way and dump you as soon as the transactions are over. With the good underwriter you wind up being worth hundreds of millions and your stock trades on the NASDAQ big board; with the crummy underwriter you’re a penny stock trading on the pink sheets.