Edit: This question attracted way more interest than I hoped for! I will need some time to go through the comments in the next days, thanks for your efforts everyone. One thing I could grasp from the answers already - it seems to be complicated. There is no one fits all answer.
Under capitalism, it seems companies always need to grow bigger. Why can’t they just say, okay, we have 100 employees and produce a nice product for a specific market and that’s fine?
Or is this only a US megacorp thing where they need to grow to satisfy their shareholders?
Let’s ignore that most of the times the small companies get bought by the large ones.
That’s a useless comment that you damn well know goes against the intent of op and everyone else here
What an assinine take.
About .01% of companies are publicly traded.
The only thing requiring a company be public is the desire for growth.
It’s a fallacy. As stated.
My Limited Liability Company has had 1 client for 5 years. I am in the overwhelming majority of companies who have no need or desire for growth.
OPs statement is a category error.