Last week, the company I work for hit 15 years in existence.

This is particularly exciting to me because most of the tech companies I’m aware of that have been around for 15 years are either giant conglomerates, or have been acquired by said giant conglomerates.

But @Buffer is fully independent, and we have no plans to stop.

@Joel Gascoigne (our founder and my boss) shared 15 reflections earlier this week from his time building Buffer, and honestly the first one stands out to me the most:

“Survival is a competitive advantage. Setting up the ownership structure to play an infinite game is both a great strategy and a lot of fun.”

I don’t think we talk enough about survival in tech. Everyone wants to grow relentlessly, and the thinking seems to be that you must to do this to either (1) be attractive enough to be acquired or (2) to become too big to fail.

But do you have a plan if your growth journey suddenly is cut short? If a competitor renders you obsolete, and you can’t catch up quickly enough because you’re beholden to other interests? If your culture is miserable and suddenly everyone you hired for the journey starts to leave? If your investors suddenly pull out because you’re not creating a big enough return on their investment?

It’s a serious thing to consider. Are you here for an exit, or do you want to do things on your terms and love it for the whole ride?

These are often the things that one considers when they take up freelancing, or starting their own business. I never thought this would be possible as an employee of someone else’s company.

The thing I love about Buffer, despite only being here for about 1/6 of the journey, is that pretty much everything we do and how we do it comes down to two things: independence and infinite survival. This thing needs to last and we want to run it how we want. All the values, operating principles, work-life balance, product strategy, everything comes down to that.

I wish more businesses took this philosophy to heart. I think it would help more people work more happily and build more great things for the world. Rather than help a small number of folks get infinitely richer.