Yup, I was there around that time and it sucked. But this is only the seed kernel of the rot that happens. I think there's a PG essay somewhere about "front of

Yup, I was there around that time and it sucked. But this is only the seed kernel of the rot that happens. I think there's a PG essay somewhere about "front of mind" and how it impacts what you do. As a founder if you're thinking all the time about funding it blocks you from thinking about building stuff. The same sort of dynamic exists with job security. If you perceive that it's actually pretty difficult to lose your job, if you perceive that lots of people at various levels know your value to the company and are willing to go to bat for you, that helps a lot. It helps even more to push those issues out of the front of your mind, so that day to day you tend to worry mostly about making stuff and solving problems, things you are intrinsically motivated to do. What happens when the working environment becomes more cutthroat is that those issues bubble up and become more front of mind for more people. People think about how to work the system, people evaluate everything that happens based on how it will advantage or disadvantage them in reviews. People who spend most of their time working or gaming the system find that spending their time that way is fruitful. Folks who are intrinsically motivated see these changes happen and they perceive the quality of their working environment diminish. The most talented among them often find out that it is easy for them to find work elsewhere, and they do so. And this begins a cascade process of brain drain. One of the prime motivators for intrinsically motivated and talented technical people at a workplace is being able to work alongside other talented and interesting technical people. Every talented person that leaves reduces the quality of the working environment for the remaining folks, and makes them more likely to leave. Meanwhile, as good folks leave it becomes more and more difficult to execute on challenging projects. The talent pool has been diminished and the people with the most experience have also left. It doesn't take long for the "corporate culture" and working environment to change dramatically from one where people spend most of their efforts on "getting stuff done", people enjoy their work, and lots of big, challenging projects continually get done with a high degree of quality to one where people tend to think about their motivations mostly in terms of a paycheck, are constantly searching for a way out, and there's a downward spiraling level of quality and achievement in terms of projects.