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How do you explain Virgin or even, well, Pixar? Why does it matter if a division fails? It's only one part of many as if you have many divisions doing the sam

How do you explain Virgin or even, well, Pixar? Why does it matter if a division fails? It's only one part of many as if you have many divisions doing the same thing trying competing for the same prize, with the winning division getting it, what's wrong with that? Isn't that how Apple made it to the top? I don't get this argument. Why not just split the division or create two and have them fight it out to create the better product? Kind of like the Mac, Lisa, and Apple II team worked?

gyardley 15y ago
I don't know anything about Virgin or Pixar, so I don't and won't explain them at all. For that matter, I don't know anything about the Mac, Lisa, and Apple II team. I have heard that Apple will create ten prototypes from scratch before picking one, but this seems a little different from having ten different divisions doing the exact same thing. I would be surprised if the ten different prototypes were made by ten different VPs, but there's a lot I don't know about Apple. It matters a great deal if a division fails precisely because most companies only have one of them. If the company had two, certainly one could fail - but often companies don't have the resources for two. Splitting the division into two equal parts often isn't practical - sometimes it takes five people to complete a job and the company only has money for five salaries. And for most functional divisions - human resources, marketing, product management, finance, etc. - I really don't understand how the company could have two parallel organizations operating simultaneously, even if they had the resources, without causing damage to and confusion in the company. I get that you'd like things to work differently - but I can only tell you how they work currently, at every company I've ever been a part of. If you can persuade a company to hire you as the vice president of something without lengthy experience, that's terrific, and I wish you much success. But you asked why companies don't generally do this, and I've told you.
- diminium 15y ago
  So basically, what your saying is most companies don't want to split even if they can? What's wrong with having two people work one division while the other three work the other? What do you think is preventing that from happening? Yes, some companies really do split the functional divisions of HR, marketing, product management, finance, etc. They are rare but they are quite successful otherwise I wouldn't be asking this question to figure out why more companies don't do the same?

gyardley 15y ago

I don't know anything about Virgin or Pixar, so I don't and won't explain them at all. For that matter, I don't know anything about the Mac, Lisa, and Apple II team. I have heard that Apple will create ten prototypes from scratch before picking one, but this seems a little different from having ten different divisions doing the exact same thing. I would be surprised if the ten different prototypes were made by ten different VPs, but there's a lot I don't know about Apple. It matters a great deal if a division fails precisely because most companies only have one of them. If the company had two, certainly one could fail - but often companies don't have the resources for two. Splitting the division into two equal parts often isn't practical - sometimes it takes five people to complete a job and the company only has money for five salaries. And for most functional divisions - human resources, marketing, product management, finance, etc. - I really don't understand how the company could have two parallel organizations operating simultaneously, even if they had the resources, without causing damage to and confusion in the company. I get that you'd like things to work differently - but I can only tell you how they work currently, at every company I've ever been a part of. If you can persuade a company to hire you as the vice president of something without lengthy experience, that's terrific, and I wish you much success. But you asked why companies don't generally do this, and I've told you.

diminium 15y ago
So basically, what your saying is most companies don't want to split even if they can? What's wrong with having two people work one division while the other three work the other? What do you think is preventing that from happening? Yes, some companies really do split the functional divisions of HR, marketing, product management, finance, etc. They are rare but they are quite successful otherwise I wouldn't be asking this question to figure out why more companies don't do the same?