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Went from a 120,000 person company to a 12 person company and this is so true. If you’ve got great leadership, a small company can be an incredibly fun, almost

by Top19 9y ago

Went from a 120,000 person company to a 12 person company and this is so true. If you’ve got great leadership, a small company can be an incredibly fun, almost artistic like experience to work at. A That being said I really enjoyed my time at Bigco. It teaches you a ton about bureaucracy, the inevitable issues large groups of humans has, there is a built in social network, lots of legal protections, etc.

ellius 9y ago
There’s a good line in “Accidental Empires” about how, in large companies, appearances and ability to work within the system are more important than actual ability with regard to advancement. In startups, there is no system, which is what makes it “so damn fun.” I think that’s right, but the flip side is that a big sturdy business has theoretically figured out an angle that they can exploit into the ground in the market, and you can learn a ton by seeing how they do that, how various subgroups within the company navigate the larger system, et al. So both definitely have their benefits from an educational perspective, although I definitely think smaller in general tends to be more fun because of how much you can shape your surroundings and see immediate feedback in changes to the system. But fun isn’t necessarily the most important thing always.
- late2part 9y ago
  It is my opinion that Cringeley is a fraud. He did a kickstarter and completely failed to deliver. Separately if you live your life in service to a bohemeth, learning nonreproducible skills in maneuvering their bureaucracy you are likely to have a miserable pointless career. There’s so much more actual learning and effective transferable skill and power in working to achieve things versus serving an internal bureaucracy that rent seeks. I’m reminded of the John Boyd line: “Do you want to be somebody, or do something?” Winning the respect of your incestuous peers is hollow outside in the real World if you don’t actually deliver real effective results. But so many of these B-Ark people do so well at big companies with minimal actual Skills other than sucking up and dodging blame.
  - apohn 9y ago
    >Separately if you live your life in service to a bohemeth, learning nonreproducible skills in maneuvering their bureaucracy you are likely to have a miserable pointless career. If are a bigco and you actually care about doing a good job, you should try to find the groups where you are recognized for doing a good job and being innovative. I've worked for bigco's and seen everything from the "Analytics Expert" who spends all day rearranging slides and survives by navigating the bureaucracy, to people who are building services on top of AWS. Plenty of people are content to just do the bare minimum and find the bigco groups that allow them to do this. Don't be in that group.
  - ellius 9y ago
    I don’t have strong feelings about Cringley. He admits in the book he basically wrote an industry gossip mag, so I took the whole thing with a grain of salt and just tried to enjoy it. That said, I think your other comments are correct but somewhat miss the point. Certain types of work you can pretty much only be exposed to within a large company that can muster the required volume of funds / expertise / reputation. And learning to corral diverse groups of people with competing needs and priorities is pretty much the definition of a transferrable skill. One example from my own life: I’ve bounced around financial institutions (mostly banks and credit card companies) for the last several years. To continue building the skills I’m interested in, I need a better understanding of the internals of big banks. It’s simply much more difficult for me to try to learn those things in a small company or startup, unless I can get one of the few spots available in a company like Monzo, which would require me to not only get the position but move away from my friends / family / etc. (And then I’m still looking at a small company’s new vision of how a thing should work rather than seeing how it actually works in most situations today.) There are always tradeoffs, and sometimes a big company will have positions that are better suited to your current goals.

by Top19 9y ago

ellius 9y ago

There’s a good line in “Accidental Empires” about how, in large companies, appearances and ability to work within the system are more important than actual ability with regard to advancement. In startups, there is no system, which is what makes it “so damn fun.” I think that’s right, but the flip side is that a big sturdy business has theoretically figured out an angle that they can exploit into the ground in the market, and you can learn a ton by seeing how they do that, how various subgroups within the company navigate the larger system, et al. So both definitely have their benefits from an educational perspective, although I definitely think smaller in general tends to be more fun because of how much you can shape your surroundings and see immediate feedback in changes to the system. But fun isn’t necessarily the most important thing always.

late2part 9y ago
It is my opinion that Cringeley is a fraud. He did a kickstarter and completely failed to deliver. Separately if you live your life in service to a bohemeth, learning nonreproducible skills in maneuvering their bureaucracy you are likely to have a miserable pointless career. There’s so much more actual learning and effective transferable skill and power in working to achieve things versus serving an internal bureaucracy that rent seeks. I’m reminded of the John Boyd line: “Do you want to be somebody, or do something?” Winning the respect of your incestuous peers is hollow outside in the real World if you don’t actually deliver real effective results. But so many of these B-Ark people do so well at big companies with minimal actual Skills other than sucking up and dodging blame.
- apohn 9y ago
  >Separately if you live your life in service to a bohemeth, learning nonreproducible skills in maneuvering their bureaucracy you are likely to have a miserable pointless career. If are a bigco and you actually care about doing a good job, you should try to find the groups where you are recognized for doing a good job and being innovative. I've worked for bigco's and seen everything from the "Analytics Expert" who spends all day rearranging slides and survives by navigating the bureaucracy, to people who are building services on top of AWS. Plenty of people are content to just do the bare minimum and find the bigco groups that allow them to do this. Don't be in that group.
- ellius 9y ago
  I don’t have strong feelings about Cringley. He admits in the book he basically wrote an industry gossip mag, so I took the whole thing with a grain of salt and just tried to enjoy it. That said, I think your other comments are correct but somewhat miss the point. Certain types of work you can pretty much only be exposed to within a large company that can muster the required volume of funds / expertise / reputation. And learning to corral diverse groups of people with competing needs and priorities is pretty much the definition of a transferrable skill. One example from my own life: I’ve bounced around financial institutions (mostly banks and credit card companies) for the last several years. To continue building the skills I’m interested in, I need a better understanding of the internals of big banks. It’s simply much more difficult for me to try to learn those things in a small company or startup, unless I can get one of the few spots available in a company like Monzo, which would require me to not only get the position but move away from my friends / family / etc. (And then I’m still looking at a small company’s new vision of how a thing should work rather than seeing how it actually works in most situations today.) There are always tradeoffs, and sometimes a big company will have positions that are better suited to your current goals.