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> Now you can say, "Well Finland has the population of Colorado, so whatev'", but that's just silly. The entire, "Well this is just too big," argument has no me

> Now you can say, "Well Finland has the population of Colorado, so whatev'", but that's just silly. The entire, "Well this is just too big," argument has no merit. It's just arguing for the status quo for the sake of the status quo We're on Hacker News, a website maintained by an investment firm focused on startups, created by a man (Paul Graham) who has written at length about why startups are better-positioned to tackle certain problems, address certain markets, or try radical management tactics internally, specifically due to their size[0], and the lack of overhead that larger companies use to manage their size. I think it's a little silly to dismiss the claim that size matters as having "no merit" and "arguing for the status quo [just] for the sake of the status quo". [0] e.g, http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html

jonathankoren 11y ago
Putting aside that the idea that companies and societies are the same thing, this argument is still wrong. The reason why small companies take risks is because they are not invested in the status quo and ossified. They innovate not only because the have to, but because they have a culture where it's possible to do that. The lack of innovation at large companies isn't that they've looked at the innovation and said, "No. Not for us. We'll let someone else do that." It's that they can't even see the opportunity for innovation. It's arguing for the status quo why you see the opportunity, and say "No. Not for us," which is exactly what what the grandparent was arguing.
wtallis 11y ago
Startups are trying to create something new. Governments are just trying to deploy the same thing across different numbers of cities/states/etc. There are certainly reasons why a larger-scale deployment of a public policy could be more likely to run into problems that might not have been encountered in a smaller scale trial, but that's a vastly weaker argument than for startups.

jonathankoren 11y ago

Putting aside that the idea that companies and societies are the same thing, this argument is still wrong. The reason why small companies take risks is because they are not invested in the status quo and ossified. They innovate not only because the have to, but because they have a culture where it's possible to do that. The lack of innovation at large companies isn't that they've looked at the innovation and said, "No. Not for us. We'll let someone else do that." It's that they can't even see the opportunity for innovation. It's arguing for the status quo why you see the opportunity, and say "No. Not for us," which is exactly what what the grandparent was arguing.

wtallis 11y ago

Startups are trying to create something new. Governments are just trying to deploy the same thing across different numbers of cities/states/etc. There are certainly reasons why a larger-scale deployment of a public policy could be more likely to run into problems that might not have been encountered in a smaller scale trial, but that's a vastly weaker argument than for startups.