5 ms·

It is an interesting article, but the hardest thing to me is accepting the premise: why do we want "scaling startups" in the first place? As a consumer, I'd be

It is an interesting article, but the hardest thing to me is accepting the premise: why do we want "scaling startups" in the first place? As a consumer, I'd be hard-pressed to think of a company that can make my life better or deliver better services because of its size. As an engineer, I'd rather work in an organization that can be more efficient and profitable by being super-focused in the core business and commodifying/outsourcing/open sourcing everything else. I get depressed thinking about all the brainpower that we waste by having these huge corporations competing for market share in areas that would benefit immediately from collaboration/interoperability/open standards. Google and its 20 different messaging solutions come to mind, but I also don't forget that Skype was sold by 7 billion dollars and then wasted away. And history likely repeating itself with Discord. As an entrepreneur, I'd rather have a Basecamp-style company with < 50 people and constantly profitable over an unicorn where I'd have little to no control and would be dependent on VC money. Every day I am getting more and more convinced that the problems of Capitalism could be mitigated by not allowing corporations over a certain size. Over 150 headcount? Instead of fighting to get the company culture in place, just break it apart.

toomanyrichies 5y ago
> As a consumer, I'd be hard-pressed to think of a company that can make my life better or deliver better services because of its size. Please let me know if I'm mis-understanding this sentence, but there are quite a few companies that confer benefits to consumers as a result of their size. Think of Walmart, Amazon, any ride-sharing company, any airline, any carmaker, etc. Those are all examples of business models whose value proposition is predicated on the scale of their operations. Granted, not every industry or company depends on scale, but plenty of them do. Business is a big tent, and different industries have different requirements for entry. It's exceedingly unlikely that the COVID mRNA vaccine could have been invented by a company with the scale or capitalization of a Basecamp. Again, let me know if I'm misunderstanding the point you made.
- rglullis 5y ago
  No. All the examples you listed at best make things cheaper, not better, and in some cases they can only do so by sacrificing quality (airlines, walmart) or by destroying profitability in one sector and funding the business somewhere else (carmakers only make money via financing, ride shares only survive due to Softbank, Amazon's "your margin is my opportunity" and AWS, etc) > It's exceedingly unlikely that the COVID mRNA vaccine could have been invented by a company with the scale or capitalization of a Basecamp. Certainly not. It would take several of these smaller companies, working in different parts of the research chain and all collaborating organically (without any central planner). The real question is whether it would be faster or slower to develop it in such a scenario, and also if the trade-off is acceptable.
  - JCharante 5y ago
    A ride share network being bigger means reducing your time until you get picked up. Imagine 1 car servicing 1 rider vs 10k cars to service 10k riders, they will be much more distributed.
    - rglullis 5y ago
      You could also have a complete p2p system and forego a central company. Or your network of 10k drivers could be made of 100 taxi coops, each with an average of 100 members.
itronitron 5y ago
The concept of a scaling startup is used to juice the internal brainwash so that everyone feels they are 1) part of a successful company and 2) destined for career growth. There are many companies that label themselves as startups despite not actually being startups I would also expect that many of those companies also consider themselves to be 'scaling startups' as well.
- rglullis 5y ago
  Yeah, but my aversion to big companies could be extended even to traditional corporations that don't call themselves startups.

toomanyrichies 5y ago

> As a consumer, I'd be hard-pressed to think of a company that can make my life better or deliver better services because of its size. Please let me know if I'm mis-understanding this sentence, but there are quite a few companies that confer benefits to consumers as a result of their size. Think of Walmart, Amazon, any ride-sharing company, any airline, any carmaker, etc. Those are all examples of business models whose value proposition is predicated on the scale of their operations. Granted, not every industry or company depends on scale, but plenty of them do. Business is a big tent, and different industries have different requirements for entry. It's exceedingly unlikely that the COVID mRNA vaccine could have been invented by a company with the scale or capitalization of a Basecamp. Again, let me know if I'm misunderstanding the point you made.

rglullis 5y ago
No. All the examples you listed at best make things cheaper, not better, and in some cases they can only do so by sacrificing quality (airlines, walmart) or by destroying profitability in one sector and funding the business somewhere else (carmakers only make money via financing, ride shares only survive due to Softbank, Amazon's "your margin is my opportunity" and AWS, etc) > It's exceedingly unlikely that the COVID mRNA vaccine could have been invented by a company with the scale or capitalization of a Basecamp. Certainly not. It would take several of these smaller companies, working in different parts of the research chain and all collaborating organically (without any central planner). The real question is whether it would be faster or slower to develop it in such a scenario, and also if the trade-off is acceptable.
- JCharante 5y ago
  A ride share network being bigger means reducing your time until you get picked up. Imagine 1 car servicing 1 rider vs 10k cars to service 10k riders, they will be much more distributed.
  - rglullis 5y ago
    You could also have a complete p2p system and forego a central company. Or your network of 10k drivers could be made of 100 taxi coops, each with an average of 100 members.

itronitron 5y ago

The concept of a scaling startup is used to juice the internal brainwash so that everyone feels they are 1) part of a successful company and 2) destined for career growth. There are many companies that label themselves as startups despite not actually being startups I would also expect that many of those companies also consider themselves to be 'scaling startups' as well.

rglullis 5y ago
Yeah, but my aversion to big companies could be extended even to traditional corporations that don't call themselves startups.