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It’s been eye opening to see Google, FAANG, et al to gradually be transformed from the “rebel” to basically the core of corporate America - with the correspond

It’s been eye opening to see Google, FAANG, et al to gradually be transformed from the “rebel” to basically the core of corporate America - with the corresponding structures and incentives they once said to have despised. Early on, they set out to keep the “startup” culture internally - to drive ongoing innovation. But it turns out that this requires a tremendous amount of both trust and capital to waste to do at scale. The skills to survive and progress at a large organization don’t resemble running a new, daring business.

unity1001 4y ago
> Early on, they set out to keep the “startup” culture internally - to drive ongoing innovation There are a lot of companies outside the US that keep their original culture way into their maturity at global scale. Hetzner, for example - started as an upstart hosting provider that prioritized engineering. It became a global entity with DCs in Europe and the US, possibly the biggest datacenter operator and cloud provider in Europe. Their engineering is still top notch. So much that even as a $50/month paying customer, your technical support related ticket gets attended by an engineer every time. Impressive feat considering how they have ~200,000 companies as their customers - in addition to the individuals that use their services. Especially their network quality was praised a lot when they first came out. Their network is still top quality. Their inital culture as it was known has not changed. What destroys American companies are the American laws that force the board to thrash the company, the employees and the users for the sake of shareholder profit. If you don't sell your soul to the devil and suck every cent as profit for the shareholders every quarter, the shareholders have a right to sue, depose you and put there someone who will. There is no way in hell US companies can protect their original culture and keep theier missions intact as long as such rapacious laws enable the worst profiteers in the American society to burn down everything for short term profit.
- mattkrause 4y ago
  > If you don't sell your soul to the devil and suck every cent as profit for the shareholders, the shareholders have a right to sue.... That's not actually true, except insofar as anyone can file a lawsuit for basically anything. Long discussion here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393674 but in brief, Dodge v. Ford is a tough case that gets overinterpreted. More recent ones give enormous latitude to the company's management.
  - unity1001 4y ago
    > More recent ones give enormous latitude to the company's management. That's the problem with common law - more recent ones set a different 'precedent'. The next case can set a totally different 'precedent' and you as a ceo can be part of that 'precedent'. Still evaluates to the same.
edanm 4y ago
While I think a lot of their culture has definitely changed, which makes sense given their size, the much bigger difference over the last 10 years has actually been the media's take on Big Tech. Around 2015, there was a very noticeable shift in almost all media from liking tech companies to being super anti tech companies.

unity1001 4y ago

> Early on, they set out to keep the “startup” culture internally - to drive ongoing innovation There are a lot of companies outside the US that keep their original culture way into their maturity at global scale. Hetzner, for example - started as an upstart hosting provider that prioritized engineering. It became a global entity with DCs in Europe and the US, possibly the biggest datacenter operator and cloud provider in Europe. Their engineering is still top notch. So much that even as a $50/month paying customer, your technical support related ticket gets attended by an engineer every time. Impressive feat considering how they have ~200,000 companies as their customers - in addition to the individuals that use their services. Especially their network quality was praised a lot when they first came out. Their network is still top quality. Their inital culture as it was known has not changed. What destroys American companies are the American laws that force the board to thrash the company, the employees and the users for the sake of shareholder profit. If you don't sell your soul to the devil and suck every cent as profit for the shareholders every quarter, the shareholders have a right to sue, depose you and put there someone who will. There is no way in hell US companies can protect their original culture and keep theier missions intact as long as such rapacious laws enable the worst profiteers in the American society to burn down everything for short term profit.

mattkrause 4y ago
> If you don't sell your soul to the devil and suck every cent as profit for the shareholders, the shareholders have a right to sue.... That's not actually true, except insofar as anyone can file a lawsuit for basically anything. Long discussion here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393674 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23393674 but in brief, Dodge v. Ford is a tough case that gets overinterpreted. More recent ones give enormous latitude to the company's management.
- unity1001 4y ago
  > More recent ones give enormous latitude to the company's management. That's the problem with common law - more recent ones set a different 'precedent'. The next case can set a totally different 'precedent' and you as a ceo can be part of that 'precedent'. Still evaluates to the same.

edanm 4y ago

While I think a lot of their culture has definitely changed, which makes sense given their size, the much bigger difference over the last 10 years has actually been the media's take on Big Tech. Around 2015, there was a very noticeable shift in almost all media from liking tech companies to being super anti tech companies.