5 ms·
The behavior and culture of a company is often a direct reflection of the character of the people who founded it. Unfortunately, very few 24 year olds are matur
by code_duck 16y ago
The behavior and culture of a company is often a direct reflection of the character of the people who founded it. Unfortunately, very few 24 year olds are mature enough to handle the responsibility and decisions that come with a large corporation - even though the corporation may be successful, other problems become evident. Take Etsy, for instance, another company founded by a 24 year old. While they have been successful overall, the company culture is atrocious. It's not just youth that is the problem, of course.
- noahc 16y agoCan you explain further about Etsy? Is this documented somewhere?
- daveed 16y agoYes, I would like to hear more about this (as well as other examples of "companies gone wrong")
- code_duck 16y agoThere is plenty of discontent documented on the web, in blogs, on Etsy's forums (which are difficult to penetrate, since the search and navigation features are poor), on the forums of other marketplace sites, on Twitter, and so on. They have a knack for turning away people who should be their biggest supporters. I can think of many successful shop owners have left after 2-3 years, disappointed by the way the site is administrated.
- jswinghammer 16y agoYeah this is my experience with Etsy as well. I have a poor opinion of the company from talking to sellers who are friends. I wrote a scraper of their site for friends to get their sales data for taxes. Years went by before they bothered to implement this trivial feature. My code worked because in two years their pages didn't change at all. Sorta crazy. They seem to be getting better but I don't know.
- gyardley 16y agoDo elaborate. I know a handful of people at Etsy and they all seem pleased to be there.
- code_duck 16y agoThey treat their employees quite well, for the most part. It's the customers who suffer from this.
- swolchok 16y agoDon't forget Microsoft. If you weren't convinced already, Breaking Windows makes it fairly clear that the company was a projection of Bill Gates.
- sliverstorm 16y agoI've always figured it was, and consequently I've never really hated Microsoft. I've always been impressed with what they managed, and by extension impressed by the man. It probably helps that I didn't personally suffer the worst of their marauding.