Yesterday the Wall Street
journal published an article discussing how people are leaving eBay and Yahoo
to work at web start-ups: Web
Start-Ups Lure Executives At eBay, Yahoo (subscription may be required).

Here are some of the reasons
given for these departures (all emphases added). 

“…he was happy to trade
the big salary and bonus for more
responsibility and the potential to
get in on the ground floor of a potentially hot company…” 

“…they have already grown rich from their stints
there. And there is little financial
incentive to stay…”

"…Silicon
Valley’s start-up scene is booming again…"

The “…exodus also stems
from the bureaucracies that developed
as the companies grew…”

The irony is that once a
company is successful, and grows in size and complexity, they often become the
very environment to which they were contrasted in their infancy.  

This “maturity”, as the
WSJ describes it, often causes them to be less flexible so talent retention
becomes an issue.

The very company that pushed
the last “dinosaur” out of the way risks becoming a dinosaur themselves.  

And … that happens a lot
faster now then it used to happen.