“When I ask CEOs who’ve taken companies public to identify the biggest change they notice before and after, I always get the same answer: Every employee starts watching the stock ticker.

And so a company might preach quality, the CEO might genuinely believe in craftsmanship, and the company may strive to reward great work. But when employees see the stock price crash because of a competitor who ships junk, the temptation is overwhelming to compromise ‘just this once.’ If this juices the stock price, even for a short time, it’s only a matter of time before employees are teaching each other that quality is an unaffordable luxury. We become what the gravitational field rewards, then forget we ever wanted anything else.”

• Eric Reis, Incorruptible