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A really special failure mode is to hire management from proper grown up companies to implement real processes for your aspirationally-real startup. Serious eco

A really special failure mode is to hire management from proper grown up companies to implement real processes for your aspirationally-real startup. Serious economic misunderstanding on multiple levels and a popular choice nevertheless.

hobs 2y ago
Hah! I have seen and cleaned this up several times now; spend 80% or more of the total lifetime spend of the company in say year 4-6 after you got some basic traction, borrowing like crazy, gain literally nothing, fire everyone involved, start over with skeleton team, rebuild something useful out of the ashes.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
Aurornis 2y ago
My first exposure to big company management was, ironically, at a startup. They hired their C-level executives from big companies. Those executives hired VPs and extra layers of management who were also from big companies. Very quickly we had a deep org chart where ICs could be 5 steps removed from the CEO even though they hadn’t decided exactly what product we were going to build. Everything was done by committee in increments of the 1-hour recurring meeting once a week. You could be on 10 of these recurring meetings for 10 different projects. The first part of every meeting was a recap of last meeting. The middle part was about 20 minutes of trying to make progress on blocking items while the ex-BigCo managers came up with excuses for why they didn’t do their part yet (usually it was because they had too many meetings). The last 20 minutes was a performative exercise where we decided on action items for the week which we all knew were unlikely to get done. The company went on like this for years after I left until they ran out of extra funds to keep the charade going. The management scattered to other “startups” where I’ve heard they’re continuing to repeat the same games.
- ldjkfkdsjnv 2y ago
  Honestly, the people that put in these processes are the smart ones. Useless as they are, they do climb the ladder, get good titles, and good pay.
  - mattgreenrocks 2y ago
    Smart? I doubt they like doing those things. If they were actually smart they’d figure out how to set up an employment situation that they don’t mind that also has the pay/status that they want.
  - aleph_minus_one 2y ago
    > Honestly, the people that put in these processes are the smart ones. These people are not the smart ones, but the ones who are really good at doing "company politics" and "playing political games" (which are very different skills from being smart). My personal opinion is that it is rather a sign of smartness to see through all of this. But unluckily the people who are capable of this lack the political power and backing of other people to get "dangerous" for these "ladder climbers" (or if they do become dangerous, it is for the same reasons easy to "get rid of them" (e.g. fire them)).
  - bongodongobob 2y ago
    You're right. People here will deny it, but who is smarter: someone who attends cushy meetings all week and gets paid millions, or someone who burns themselves out hacking away at code 80 hours a week making $200k a year? Congrats, you are very smart and know how to manipulate symbols real good. Try cashing that check at the bank.
    - ldjkfkdsjnv 2y ago
      This so much. The hacking and coding doesnt matter, nobody really needs a 10x engineer. Well capitalized startups can just go hire 5 more engineers if they need to. I wish when i was younger i could have just accepted this
    - madmask 2y ago

hobs 2y ago

Hah! I have seen and cleaned this up several times now; spend 80% or more of the total lifetime spend of the company in say year 4-6 after you got some basic traction, borrowing like crazy, gain literally nothing, fire everyone involved, start over with skeleton team, rebuild something useful out of the ashes.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

Aurornis 2y ago

My first exposure to big company management was, ironically, at a startup. They hired their C-level executives from big companies. Those executives hired VPs and extra layers of management who were also from big companies. Very quickly we had a deep org chart where ICs could be 5 steps removed from the CEO even though they hadn’t decided exactly what product we were going to build. Everything was done by committee in increments of the 1-hour recurring meeting once a week. You could be on 10 of these recurring meetings for 10 different projects. The first part of every meeting was a recap of last meeting. The middle part was about 20 minutes of trying to make progress on blocking items while the ex-BigCo managers came up with excuses for why they didn’t do their part yet (usually it was because they had too many meetings). The last 20 minutes was a performative exercise where we decided on action items for the week which we all knew were unlikely to get done. The company went on like this for years after I left until they ran out of extra funds to keep the charade going. The management scattered to other “startups” where I’ve heard they’re continuing to repeat the same games.

ldjkfkdsjnv 2y ago
Honestly, the people that put in these processes are the smart ones. Useless as they are, they do climb the ladder, get good titles, and good pay.
- mattgreenrocks 2y ago
  Smart? I doubt they like doing those things. If they were actually smart they’d figure out how to set up an employment situation that they don’t mind that also has the pay/status that they want.
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago
  > Honestly, the people that put in these processes are the smart ones. These people are not the smart ones, but the ones who are really good at doing "company politics" and "playing political games" (which are very different skills from being smart). My personal opinion is that it is rather a sign of smartness to see through all of this. But unluckily the people who are capable of this lack the political power and backing of other people to get "dangerous" for these "ladder climbers" (or if they do become dangerous, it is for the same reasons easy to "get rid of them" (e.g. fire them)).
- bongodongobob 2y ago
  You're right. People here will deny it, but who is smarter: someone who attends cushy meetings all week and gets paid millions, or someone who burns themselves out hacking away at code 80 hours a week making $200k a year? Congrats, you are very smart and know how to manipulate symbols real good. Try cashing that check at the bank.
  - ldjkfkdsjnv 2y ago
    This so much. The hacking and coding doesnt matter, nobody really needs a 10x engineer. Well capitalized startups can just go hire 5 more engineers if they need to. I wish when i was younger i could have just accepted this
  - madmask 2y ago