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> When I see people in the startup world rolling their eyes at the "incompetence" of the enterprise world, I take it to mean they've never actually worked on a
by wolfgke 10y ago
> When I see people in the startup world rolling their eyes at the "incompetence" of the enterprise world, I take it to mean they've never actually worked on a truly hard problem in their lives.
I worked in a related field in the past. I don't claim that the problems are easy - where I tend to roll eyes rather is:
- Bureaucracy: A lot is required by law, I know. But there is a difference between "just following the required bureaucracy in a minimal necessary way if it stands in the path" (the startup way) vs. "taking it seriously in a way that makes the work harder than strictly necessary".
- Hierarchies: Just three words: I hate them.
- Unwillingness (?) to tackle these hard problems: The problems are hard, as you already outlined. But this implies to me that everybody in the company will move heaven and earth so that the people who work on this hard problems are able to (e.g. give all necessary information (requirement specification etc.) they know of etc.). If there is just one thing (or even office politics) which will prevent that, I don't just roll my eyes, but get furious. Because of the hardness this is not to consider an obstacle, but targeted sabotage - and should be considered as such.
- beat 10y agoI'm starting to blog about some of the issues around these things. One I want to write about - especially because it triggers controversy when I say it - is the idea that it's more important to not be wrong than it is to be right. So no matter how obviously right a move is, fear that it just might be wrong hampers decisions.
- Clubber 10y agoDon't forget rampant offshoring in the early aughts.
- ExactoKnight 10y agoPart of this comes from an inability in the early years to truly respect engineering as both a craft and as a form. I know your startup mindset well and I carry with it with me too. I came into a legacy fintech company the same way and pushed for faster decision making processes. I didn't realize the cause for conservatism until I was given a story about how the company needed to manually call and refund thousands of customers... all because one developer fucked up and double charged people. When you deal with MONEY and you experience getting burned like that... you realize how mantra's like "move fast and break things" only work as convenient motto's for startups who have nothing to lose.