> Every new idea had to be approved by him before going into production.<p>I see this in so many places and it's distressing to watch. This is the fastest way to ensure you lose people who actually love the company. Either you lose them as in they leave the company or they just stop giving ideas. I went through this personally. There would be meetings where people would be encouraged to give ideas, and unless the 'idea' was a reassertion of the leaders original idea it would be shot down. Even independent ideas/research would eventually come under the umbrella of a single individual's control. Very quickly became frustrating. Further meetings finally became all of us nodding head and waiting for things to finish. I have entire notebooks of doodles from those days. It was horrible for me because I loved the company and had so many ideas to help us function more efficiently and transparently.<p>Of note, the single individuals in this case would be one of the founding C-level folk.