Verisign

Very stable.

Interesting place in the Internet.

Reasonable compensation.

Good travel opportunities.

Best life cycle management in the business.

Some smart people.

But there are much smarter people. And this is the problem. Really smart people have the confidence to be innovative.

VeriSign and its staff are a company terrified of failure. VeriSign is, rightly so, risk-averse, so there is little space for innovation. People are rewarded for not being disruptive, which means the only way of making progress is through cliques. It's a very cliquey place.

Many employees want to be seen to be the vanguard without taking the risks of the vanguard. This is, of course, a paradox.

Everyone wants the place to be like a startup with the scale of Google/Facebook etc. It's just not on that scale, and growth is not that dramatic.

Very DC-focused, not really international, despite best efforts.

Associations with quasi-governmental organizations.

Ultimately quite uncool.

Keep milking the cash cow. To do this, accept what you are and understand where your strengths lie. Do those even better. The mission is your weakness; there will always be the potential to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.