It's also worthy of note that these companies are extreme statistical outliers. Not every company is fortunate enough to have someone like Steve Jobs or Bill Gates leading them.

It's also worth noting that all these companies have experienced executive leaders who came on during the transition from 100 to 1000 people. They succeeded with a massive amount of support from experienced top executives. This seems to be the optimal approach, hire in top execs as COO or CEO (then later chairmen or other top advicer) while keeping the founders in the leadership team.