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Ouch! Your list in [2] is sad but true from my experiences at big co. Any thoughts on how to prevent company culture from degrading to this extent?

nirvana 14y ago
Oh, do I have thoughts, let me tell you! Seriously, though, I am a firm believer[1] that company culture comes from the top. This seems consistent with the personalities for both Gates and Bezos in that they are competitive people. They know it is difficult to compare people across disciplines, so they punt on the problem and just make it a contest. I think they probably figure that if everyone is fighting to get the best kudos because there is a financial incentive, that some productivity that actually goes to the bottom line will result as well... and that the highly political and conflict oriented culture that results is less a detriment than having unmotivated people. Plus I think they believe that a highly political and conflict oriented culture is the best for finding the right, best answers because "obviously" the best choices will be taken, rather than the compromise that reaches the most popularity- or that compromise is possibly the definition of "best" in their view. The thing is, they may well be right. I believe that Apple (whom I've never worked for) does things differently. For instance, individual departments don't have profit and loss statements, the whole company does. The product focus "religion" seems to have started with Wozniak and Jobs - both of whom helped form the company culture- and was hugely re-enforced by the traumatic experience of the 1990s and the lesson taught by their comeback. (But for all I know at the individual level they may also be stack ranking.) At Apple there's a third party to the table- designers- and they seem to be the ones with the upper hand in calling shots. Since everyone recognizes and respects the need for design at apple-- this being part of their culture- this may ultimately make Apple employees more focused on the product. But I'm going here on what I've read about the company, I don't have inside info. Microsoft wants to protect their windows and office business, above all else. All competition is seen in light of "is this threatening windows?" But at the same time you have that drive "to increase visibility outside your team." Amazon wants to just throw things at the wall and see what sticks. One of the ways to get visibility in Amazon (and thus a high stack rank) is to come up with something to throw at the wall... during it's flight and while it is still in contact with the wall, you do well and get promoted, and by the time it starts to slide down the wall and crash and burn (e.g.: A9, amazon catalogs, amazon menus, etc.) you've parachuted out to a nice well funded startup where you are a "big name". (EG OCP Corp from Robocop but with parachutes.) If you get lucky it actually sticks (e.g.: AWS) and then you have a license to throw things at the wall at will. Apple on the other hand focuses on only a few things, and focuses on the customer experience and focuses on being super capital efficient, to the detriment of employees in the sense that they seem to have very high burnout (a lot is accomplished by a few, but the stress is immense.) But I think the inclusion or deference to design is the key advantage for them. It would be interesting to know the dirt on what it is like to work for Google, as they seem to have at least tried to take a completely different approach, but everyone I know who has worked there hasn't remained there more than a couple years. So, I don't know what's going on there. [1] though I can't empirically prove
- rhizome 14y ago
  Thanks for your thoughts here. This seems consistent with the personalities for both Gates and Bezos in that they are competitive people. They know it is difficult to compare people across disciplines, so they punt on the problem and just make it a contest. I have to wonder if this is a case of applied fundamental attribution errors, where they see their own success not as a natural outcome of their own privileged circumstances, but as a contest they won due to their skills, knowledge, and ability to beat their competitors at their own game. This then becomes the organizing principle of their companies.
- spaghetti 14y ago
  Interesting, thanks. I agree that company culture comes from the top. Regarding google I question the strength of their leadership. Larry and Sergey don't seem to be as out-spoken as Bezos or Steve Jobs. Eric Schmidt certainly didn't strike me as being a powerful leader like Jobs or Bezos either. I sense a lack of strong leadership from the employees I know. Kinda funny how the Android team members keep looking at each to answer questions in the recent I/O videos. I got the feeling no one was really in charge. However that wasn't my impression from watching the Go team in said videos.

nirvana 14y ago

Oh, do I have thoughts, let me tell you! Seriously, though, I am a firm believer[1] that company culture comes from the top. This seems consistent with the personalities for both Gates and Bezos in that they are competitive people. They know it is difficult to compare people across disciplines, so they punt on the problem and just make it a contest. I think they probably figure that if everyone is fighting to get the best kudos because there is a financial incentive, that some productivity that actually goes to the bottom line will result as well... and that the highly political and conflict oriented culture that results is less a detriment than having unmotivated people. Plus I think they believe that a highly political and conflict oriented culture is the best for finding the right, best answers because "obviously" the best choices will be taken, rather than the compromise that reaches the most popularity- or that compromise is possibly the definition of "best" in their view. The thing is, they may well be right. I believe that Apple (whom I've never worked for) does things differently. For instance, individual departments don't have profit and loss statements, the whole company does. The product focus "religion" seems to have started with Wozniak and Jobs - both of whom helped form the company culture- and was hugely re-enforced by the traumatic experience of the 1990s and the lesson taught by their comeback. (But for all I know at the individual level they may also be stack ranking.) At Apple there's a third party to the table- designers- and they seem to be the ones with the upper hand in calling shots. Since everyone recognizes and respects the need for design at apple-- this being part of their culture- this may ultimately make Apple employees more focused on the product. But I'm going here on what I've read about the company, I don't have inside info. Microsoft wants to protect their windows and office business, above all else. All competition is seen in light of "is this threatening windows?" But at the same time you have that drive "to increase visibility outside your team." Amazon wants to just throw things at the wall and see what sticks. One of the ways to get visibility in Amazon (and thus a high stack rank) is to come up with something to throw at the wall... during it's flight and while it is still in contact with the wall, you do well and get promoted, and by the time it starts to slide down the wall and crash and burn (e.g.: A9, amazon catalogs, amazon menus, etc.) you've parachuted out to a nice well funded startup where you are a "big name". (EG OCP Corp from Robocop but with parachutes.) If you get lucky it actually sticks (e.g.: AWS) and then you have a license to throw things at the wall at will. Apple on the other hand focuses on only a few things, and focuses on the customer experience and focuses on being super capital efficient, to the detriment of employees in the sense that they seem to have very high burnout (a lot is accomplished by a few, but the stress is immense.) But I think the inclusion or deference to design is the key advantage for them. It would be interesting to know the dirt on what it is like to work for Google, as they seem to have at least tried to take a completely different approach, but everyone I know who has worked there hasn't remained there more than a couple years. So, I don't know what's going on there. [1] though I can't empirically prove

rhizome 14y ago
Thanks for your thoughts here. This seems consistent with the personalities for both Gates and Bezos in that they are competitive people. They know it is difficult to compare people across disciplines, so they punt on the problem and just make it a contest. I have to wonder if this is a case of applied fundamental attribution errors, where they see their own success not as a natural outcome of their own privileged circumstances, but as a contest they won due to their skills, knowledge, and ability to beat their competitors at their own game. This then becomes the organizing principle of their companies.
spaghetti 14y ago
Interesting, thanks. I agree that company culture comes from the top. Regarding google I question the strength of their leadership. Larry and Sergey don't seem to be as out-spoken as Bezos or Steve Jobs. Eric Schmidt certainly didn't strike me as being a powerful leader like Jobs or Bezos either. I sense a lack of strong leadership from the employees I know. Kinda funny how the Android team members keep looking at each to answer questions in the recent I/O videos. I got the feeling no one was really in charge. However that wasn't my impression from watching the Go team in said videos.