Even without becoming publicly traded company there is simple problem of fast growth, if your first product allows you to hire 100 more people chances are lot of them will work in your company for the sake of having a job unlike your 4 friends with whom you created the first product. Then you grow again, and lot of friends and cousins (of individual employees not necesarrely the owner) are gonna get hired due to non-meritocratic reasons, then quality is gonna get reduced further. Then you start caring about public image so you start with the woke ****, which over time alianates majority of your players and the old guard (more so if it is just dishonest public image).