4 ms·

I used to work for a defense company that eventually got bought by a mega defense company. It was ~3000 people in various parts of the country and it was start

by uuilly 19y ago

I used to work for a defense company that eventually got bought by a mega defense company. It was ~3000 people in various parts of the country and it was started by a man who deeply believed in the power of the entrepreneurial spirit. It had that free for all structure that PG says he'd never seen in a tech company. It was the wild west. We had different groups competing for the same government contracts. Managers and hackers alike got whopping bonuses for beating out other groups and they got to decide which contracts they wanted to bag. Entire groups were fired if they didn't bring in revenue. Fist fights, rancor and IP theft between teams were commonplace. But with all that they created some truly mind expanding tech for their time. They owned every angle of a highly lucrative market and showed no signs of slowing down... Until they got bought. The good news is, the fist fights, duplicate (and sometimes triplicate) efforts were stopped and everyone is one big happy family that hasn't done anything new in 7 years. Their market share is in free fall but they say it's fine b/c they are moving away from products in to large scale integration which is too boring to even type about. All the cowboys have gone to other places and I went to a startup. It was fun while it lasted.

ken 19y ago
I've heard some Amazon employees say something similar (but maybe not as enthusiastically) about Amazon. One person described their structure to me as "like terrorist cells": it's understood (and encouraged) that 3 different teams are all trying to implement the same thing, in completely different languages and with completely different interfaces. They might not even know the others exist, until they ship. Hopefully at least one will survive. In some cases, more than one does. Amazon has at least 3 different data stores you can use, last I saw.
- omouse 19y ago
  That actually sounds like fun. Friendly competition indeed :D
- ww 19y ago
  Theres a view in economics that you 'can not play market' within the boundaries of the firm. That is to say if there is an overseeing committee that can end a project prematurely then you are not really having market forces operate 'within' the firm and are doomed to failure. There have been a couple of companies that have tried to do this. It is documented in the following book by Nicolai Foss: http://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Economic-Organization-Knowledge-Economy/dp/0199205329/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206109584&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Economic-Organization-Knowled...
  - BrandonM 19y ago
    Isn't it ironic that you say Amazon's strategy is "doomed to failure" at the same time that you link to a book for sale on Amazon?
    - ww 19y ago
      The company(s) mentioned in the book still exist, but they no longer try to 'play market'. The more incentive you give people/subgroups to compete with one another, the more incentive they have to not share information(best practices) with one another. Managers see this and reallocate resources. Groups feel alienated that their resources are taken away from their idea to fund someone else's idea and then they go back to keeping their real ideas to themselves and/or starting a separate business outside of the parent firm. Innovation in the mentioned companies increased dramatically when the 'play market' strategy was initially adopted though.
      - sbraford 19y ago
        I also heard Enron was much like this (amazon + the defense co).
      - raganwald 19y ago
        There's a certain 4 trillion dollar financial services firm I know. They operate like this at a country level: each country is graded against the others on an elaborate score card. The idea is that when a country finds an innovative way to "win" one year, althe others can use the idea the next year. Only, the winning countries try (nicely) to sabotage the sharing process. For example, Country "U" outsourced part of their self-service web applications to a nice fellow I know living in Country "C." Although it is not in writing, the understanding is that if he so much as has a coffee with anyone from that company in Country "C," his home town, he is out of work. Furthermore, the Country "C" guys don't really want to hire him, they're afraid he'll report what they're doing back to Country "U," so when they ask him out for coffee, all they really want to do is dangle contracts in front of him while pumping him for information under the guise of establishing his experience. It sounds like a cheap spy novel, but it's business as usual when some bright person at the top decides that a little competition is healthy :-)
gncdude 19y ago
Being from the defense sector, I'd love to know what companies you're talking about. Although I bet you don't want to get into that. Anyway, in a week I'll be leaving my 1000+ people company for a 5 people startup! Interesting times ahead...
- uuilly 19y ago
  Yeah, for whatever reason it doesn't feel right. If you're headed to / live in the bay area, drop me a line and we can have a beer. As far as your transition goes, congrats! You'll miss the epic nature of your previous projects but you won't miss the bureaucracy.
xlnt 19y ago
Are you advocating fist fights literally or metaphorically? And if it's a metaphor, I'm not sure what the literal suggestion is.
- strey 19y ago
  It is important for people to have a fighting spirit. Otherwise they'll be controlled by those who do.

by uuilly 19y ago

ken 19y ago

I've heard some Amazon employees say something similar (but maybe not as enthusiastically) about Amazon. One person described their structure to me as "like terrorist cells": it's understood (and encouraged) that 3 different teams are all trying to implement the same thing, in completely different languages and with completely different interfaces. They might not even know the others exist, until they ship. Hopefully at least one will survive. In some cases, more than one does. Amazon has at least 3 different data stores you can use, last I saw.

omouse 19y ago
That actually sounds like fun. Friendly competition indeed :D
ww 19y ago
Theres a view in economics that you 'can not play market' within the boundaries of the firm. That is to say if there is an overseeing committee that can end a project prematurely then you are not really having market forces operate 'within' the firm and are doomed to failure. There have been a couple of companies that have tried to do this. It is documented in the following book by Nicolai Foss: http://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Economic-Organization-Knowledge-Economy/dp/0199205329/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206109584&sr=1-1 http://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Economic-Organization-Knowled...
- BrandonM 19y ago
  Isn't it ironic that you say Amazon's strategy is "doomed to failure" at the same time that you link to a book for sale on Amazon?
  - ww 19y ago
    The company(s) mentioned in the book still exist, but they no longer try to 'play market'. The more incentive you give people/subgroups to compete with one another, the more incentive they have to not share information(best practices) with one another. Managers see this and reallocate resources. Groups feel alienated that their resources are taken away from their idea to fund someone else's idea and then they go back to keeping their real ideas to themselves and/or starting a separate business outside of the parent firm. Innovation in the mentioned companies increased dramatically when the 'play market' strategy was initially adopted though.
    - sbraford 19y ago
      I also heard Enron was much like this (amazon + the defense co).
    - raganwald 19y ago
      There's a certain 4 trillion dollar financial services firm I know. They operate like this at a country level: each country is graded against the others on an elaborate score card. The idea is that when a country finds an innovative way to "win" one year, althe others can use the idea the next year. Only, the winning countries try (nicely) to sabotage the sharing process. For example, Country "U" outsourced part of their self-service web applications to a nice fellow I know living in Country "C." Although it is not in writing, the understanding is that if he so much as has a coffee with anyone from that company in Country "C," his home town, he is out of work. Furthermore, the Country "C" guys don't really want to hire him, they're afraid he'll report what they're doing back to Country "U," so when they ask him out for coffee, all they really want to do is dangle contracts in front of him while pumping him for information under the guise of establishing his experience. It sounds like a cheap spy novel, but it's business as usual when some bright person at the top decides that a little competition is healthy :-)

gncdude 19y ago

Being from the defense sector, I'd love to know what companies you're talking about. Although I bet you don't want to get into that. Anyway, in a week I'll be leaving my 1000+ people company for a 5 people startup! Interesting times ahead...

uuilly 19y ago
Yeah, for whatever reason it doesn't feel right. If you're headed to / live in the bay area, drop me a line and we can have a beer. As far as your transition goes, congrats! You'll miss the epic nature of your previous projects but you won't miss the bureaucracy.

xlnt 19y ago

Are you advocating fist fights literally or metaphorically? And if it's a metaphor, I'm not sure what the literal suggestion is.

strey 19y ago
It is important for people to have a fighting spirit. Otherwise they'll be controlled by those who do.