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Trying to restart an innovation engine in a large old company like this seems to be nearly impossible. I’ve been a part of a number of startups that were gobbl

Trying to restart an innovation engine in a large old company like this seems to be nearly impossible. I’ve been a part of a number of startups that were gobbled up by big co trying to innovate their business, and it always seems to fail. The problem I continually see is that in big companies anyone who sticks around and does “something” gets promoted. Over time as the good people leave you have a layer of of really bad managers and directors that just effectively block innovation. They’ve spent their careers being shills and are threatened by anyone innovating.

marssaxman 4y ago
I was part of a startup that was gobbled up by Intel trying to innovate their business. Their culture was slow-moving and process-heavy, which makes sense for precise, high-volume manufacturing, but for software development it felt like wading through glue. I had a good impression of management in the group we got acquired into (itself a previous acquisition), but some political conflict with a different group led to our project getting shelved anyway. I quit last year as part of a general exodus. I keep hearing Intel management saying the right things about what they're trying to do, but I think it will be a long slow process if it can work at all.
Spooky23 4y ago
The stakes change. In a small growth org you need to succeed in doing something to survive. In a big org, you have to not fuck up.
- waboremo 4y ago
  I'd say for a big org the priority isn't "not fucking up", it's not objecting. In a small growth org, despite severe rank differences, you're likely to have some impact on direction if you disagree. In a big org, there is no impact. You either are the wavemaker or those gleefully riding the waves. It doesn't matter how many "we listen to everybody's opinion" there are in these big orgs, wavemakers simply keep a lot of key information to themselves which puts everyone else within at a huge disadvantage. This also causes innovative thinkers to propose ideas less, because they got burned that one time when a wavemaker shut them down with previously hidden information.
  - majormajor 4y ago
    > I'd say for a big org the priority isn't "not fucking up", it's not objecting. At the organization's level it's "don't fuck up" since you're already making a lot of money and a lot of people's livelihoods are depending on that - the trick, if you're managing in a big org, is how to avoid that turning to a "don't disagree" culture before "not changing" turns into a bad thing instead of a good thing. I haven't figured out how to do that - or to work under people who also haven't - so I prefer small orgs.
    - waboremo 4y ago
      I wonder if the "don't fuck up" principle at an organizational level really applies past a certain point. I think that's where a lot of the internal dilemmas stem from. Google as an example, they can "fuck up" tremendously on an organizational level, numerous failed products and services costing billions. Yet they still roll on, and even interns are very well aware not to do something catastrophically detrimental such as turning Google Search into a TikTok clone. There's just far too much momentum that fucking up should ever be a concern once you're at Google/Intel's level. So perhaps the fear of fucking up plays an integral role in creating this atmosphere of unchanging. When you're fearful, you're less likely to take risks in general, even if that fear is subconscious rather than active.
bergenty 4y ago
Next to impossible but not impossible. Steve Jobs did it with apple in recent memory.
- hungryforcodes 4y ago
  True, though that's because Apple basically bought NeXT, it's IP, OS, top executives and Jobs had learned alot about the mistakes he'd made. Also he was singularly driven and charismatic (like him or not). Basically it's as if Intel bought AMD and switched, but AMD had some visionary CEO that could lead Intel to victory. The days of Moore are over. Still I used to hate Intel, but now root for them. I guess I like underdogs.
  - bergenty 4y ago
    I like underdogs and I like to buy American.
    - hungryforcodes 4y ago
      Not sure why you are down voted.
      - bergenty 4y ago
        Probably people uncomfortable with explicit nationalism.
    - School-Cotton 4y ago
      Leaving aside the question of why you like to buy American… note that AMD is American too.
      - MobiusHorizons 4y ago
        My read is that people who like to "buy American" are often concerned with where the product is manufactured, as opposed to where the company is headquartered, or where the product was designed. On that score AMD is quite a bit less American made than Intel simply due to being fabricated it Taiwan and assembled in Malaysia (as far as I can find).
danuker 4y ago
Too bad industries of this size need insane amounts of capital to stay competitive.
w-j-w 4y ago
Many people complain about how good individual producers, but few talk about effective front-line managers being moved to where they are less effective. In organizations it's often assumed that the best managers need to be near the top of the org chart to spread their effectiveness as far as possible, but I contend that these great managers might be better off near producers in critical areas.
- cma 4y ago
  Since hierarchies are usually exponentially shrinking in headcount towards the top, this shouldn't have a significant impact numerically right?
  - marcosdumay 4y ago
    Very competent people are pretty rare in large organizations, once you factor in their environment. Do you put your one best performing manager at the top or at your most impactful project? (I'm not sure about the answer, but I'm not sure it a real option exists either.)
throwaway9870 4y ago
In a small organization, people usually succeed by being motivated by dream of success. In large organizations, people seem to succeed by fearing and avoid failure. That yields a very different organization.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
gumby 4y ago
> Trying to restart an innovation engine in a large old company like this seems to be nearly impossible. It's super hard and I've thought about it for years (even though I can't imagine working for a big company -- even with my own companies I leave when the headcount gets to about 200). But I've wondered if there's a kind of "hayflick limit" for corporations too. Consider Intel. One way to get the old spark back would be to simply start a new company. Takes a lot of capital and involves a lot of risk. The only tech company I know that does this well is Cisco; it's also emerged less intensively in pharma. Other than that, no. Second: Aggressively prune the product line, milk what cash cows you have, use the savings to invest heavily (including increasing compensation for those who remain, so they feel it's worth staying to be part of something growing). The advantage of this is that you ignore the deadweight problem you describe: it's too hard to root it out when you have a crisis, so just do it at a macro level. I've never seen this really be pulled off; the closet is late 90s Apple when everybody knew they were in an existential crisis and they had enough emotional commitment to keep enough people on board (since they couldn't afford to do the "raise compensation" path right away). Actually a not bad example is a company called Intel when Grove cut away the cash cow, memory, replacing it with the unproven CPU business because he could see memory rapidly becoming a commodity boat anchor. But that Intel was a much smaller company, with the founders still around, in a immature market. And it was a bet the company manoevre. The prune-and-milk (mixed metaphor) requires a compelling vision that includes an extreme sense of urgency. Elop's "burning platform" memo at Nokia tried to give the sense of urgency but had no compelling vision beyond "the company needs to make money in order to survive". Gelsinger did a good job of setting out a coherent vision, but is it compelling enough to get good people to join & stay? I doubt it. (The reason for the "milk" part of the approach is because while you're in the shit, even if you are digging your way out, most of the public articles will be like the submission we are discussing, which makes execution harder). But in general, apart from a big pool of money and a legacy customer base, why would you try this with a big, cumbersome company when you could just do a startup? That's what Cisco honed in the 90s and still does: I think the company needs to invest in new tech X using approach Y, but that would threaten the revenues of some existing product line. You think tech X is great but approach Z is better. We both quit and start companies (sometimes Cisco even invests in later rounds). Eventually it turns out that one of us was right. That company gets bought (big bonus for the founders, who rejoin Cisco) and the founders of the one that didn't win also can get their jobs back (maybe through a small acquisition so they get a small bonus for their risk taking). This allows them to compensate innovators outside the normal process (which doesn't piss off the MBA VPs), allow some competing technological developments, and keeps them big. I don't know if that process is as big and institutionalized as it was in the Chambers/Volpe days, but it was super smart.
hw 4y ago
Or the acquisition was meant to take over / replace an existing product and those working on the existing product had no idea, and what happens is continued misalignment, pushbacks, conflicts and years go by with nothing being done.

marssaxman 4y ago

I was part of a startup that was gobbled up by Intel trying to innovate their business. Their culture was slow-moving and process-heavy, which makes sense for precise, high-volume manufacturing, but for software development it felt like wading through glue. I had a good impression of management in the group we got acquired into (itself a previous acquisition), but some political conflict with a different group led to our project getting shelved anyway. I quit last year as part of a general exodus. I keep hearing Intel management saying the right things about what they're trying to do, but I think it will be a long slow process if it can work at all.

Spooky23 4y ago

The stakes change. In a small growth org you need to succeed in doing something to survive. In a big org, you have to not fuck up.

waboremo 4y ago
I'd say for a big org the priority isn't "not fucking up", it's not objecting. In a small growth org, despite severe rank differences, you're likely to have some impact on direction if you disagree. In a big org, there is no impact. You either are the wavemaker or those gleefully riding the waves. It doesn't matter how many "we listen to everybody's opinion" there are in these big orgs, wavemakers simply keep a lot of key information to themselves which puts everyone else within at a huge disadvantage. This also causes innovative thinkers to propose ideas less, because they got burned that one time when a wavemaker shut them down with previously hidden information.
- majormajor 4y ago
  > I'd say for a big org the priority isn't "not fucking up", it's not objecting. At the organization's level it's "don't fuck up" since you're already making a lot of money and a lot of people's livelihoods are depending on that - the trick, if you're managing in a big org, is how to avoid that turning to a "don't disagree" culture before "not changing" turns into a bad thing instead of a good thing. I haven't figured out how to do that - or to work under people who also haven't - so I prefer small orgs.
  - waboremo 4y ago
    I wonder if the "don't fuck up" principle at an organizational level really applies past a certain point. I think that's where a lot of the internal dilemmas stem from. Google as an example, they can "fuck up" tremendously on an organizational level, numerous failed products and services costing billions. Yet they still roll on, and even interns are very well aware not to do something catastrophically detrimental such as turning Google Search into a TikTok clone. There's just far too much momentum that fucking up should ever be a concern once you're at Google/Intel's level. So perhaps the fear of fucking up plays an integral role in creating this atmosphere of unchanging. When you're fearful, you're less likely to take risks in general, even if that fear is subconscious rather than active.

bergenty 4y ago

Next to impossible but not impossible. Steve Jobs did it with apple in recent memory.

hungryforcodes 4y ago
True, though that's because Apple basically bought NeXT, it's IP, OS, top executives and Jobs had learned alot about the mistakes he'd made. Also he was singularly driven and charismatic (like him or not). Basically it's as if Intel bought AMD and switched, but AMD had some visionary CEO that could lead Intel to victory. The days of Moore are over. Still I used to hate Intel, but now root for them. I guess I like underdogs.
- bergenty 4y ago
  I like underdogs and I like to buy American.
  - hungryforcodes 4y ago
    Not sure why you are down voted.
    - bergenty 4y ago
      Probably people uncomfortable with explicit nationalism.
  - School-Cotton 4y ago
    Leaving aside the question of why you like to buy American… note that AMD is American too.
    - MobiusHorizons 4y ago
      My read is that people who like to "buy American" are often concerned with where the product is manufactured, as opposed to where the company is headquartered, or where the product was designed. On that score AMD is quite a bit less American made than Intel simply due to being fabricated it Taiwan and assembled in Malaysia (as far as I can find).

danuker 4y ago

Too bad industries of this size need insane amounts of capital to stay competitive.

w-j-w 4y ago

Many people complain about how good individual producers, but few talk about effective front-line managers being moved to where they are less effective. In organizations it's often assumed that the best managers need to be near the top of the org chart to spread their effectiveness as far as possible, but I contend that these great managers might be better off near producers in critical areas.

cma 4y ago
Since hierarchies are usually exponentially shrinking in headcount towards the top, this shouldn't have a significant impact numerically right?
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  Very competent people are pretty rare in large organizations, once you factor in their environment. Do you put your one best performing manager at the top or at your most impactful project? (I'm not sure about the answer, but I'm not sure it a real option exists either.)

throwaway9870 4y ago

In a small organization, people usually succeed by being motivated by dream of success. In large organizations, people seem to succeed by fearing and avoid failure. That yields a very different organization.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

gumby 4y ago

> Trying to restart an innovation engine in a large old company like this seems to be nearly impossible. It's super hard and I've thought about it for years (even though I can't imagine working for a big company -- even with my own companies I leave when the headcount gets to about 200). But I've wondered if there's a kind of "hayflick limit" for corporations too. Consider Intel. One way to get the old spark back would be to simply start a new company. Takes a lot of capital and involves a lot of risk. The only tech company I know that does this well is Cisco; it's also emerged less intensively in pharma. Other than that, no. Second: Aggressively prune the product line, milk what cash cows you have, use the savings to invest heavily (including increasing compensation for those who remain, so they feel it's worth staying to be part of something growing). The advantage of this is that you ignore the deadweight problem you describe: it's too hard to root it out when you have a crisis, so just do it at a macro level. I've never seen this really be pulled off; the closet is late 90s Apple when everybody knew they were in an existential crisis and they had enough emotional commitment to keep enough people on board (since they couldn't afford to do the "raise compensation" path right away). Actually a not bad example is a company called Intel when Grove cut away the cash cow, memory, replacing it with the unproven CPU business because he could see memory rapidly becoming a commodity boat anchor. But that Intel was a much smaller company, with the founders still around, in a immature market. And it was a bet the company manoevre. The prune-and-milk (mixed metaphor) requires a compelling vision that includes an extreme sense of urgency. Elop's "burning platform" memo at Nokia tried to give the sense of urgency but had no compelling vision beyond "the company needs to make money in order to survive". Gelsinger did a good job of setting out a coherent vision, but is it compelling enough to get good people to join & stay? I doubt it. (The reason for the "milk" part of the approach is because while you're in the shit, even if you are digging your way out, most of the public articles will be like the submission we are discussing, which makes execution harder). But in general, apart from a big pool of money and a legacy customer base, why would you try this with a big, cumbersome company when you could just do a startup? That's what Cisco honed in the 90s and still does: I think the company needs to invest in new tech X using approach Y, but that would threaten the revenues of some existing product line. You think tech X is great but approach Z is better. We both quit and start companies (sometimes Cisco even invests in later rounds). Eventually it turns out that one of us was right. That company gets bought (big bonus for the founders, who rejoin Cisco) and the founders of the one that didn't win also can get their jobs back (maybe through a small acquisition so they get a small bonus for their risk taking). This allows them to compensate innovators outside the normal process (which doesn't piss off the MBA VPs), allow some competing technological developments, and keeps them big. I don't know if that process is as big and institutionalized as it was in the Chambers/Volpe days, but it was super smart.

hw 4y ago

Or the acquisition was meant to take over / replace an existing product and those working on the existing product had no idea, and what happens is continued misalignment, pushbacks, conflicts and years go by with nothing being done.