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Condolences. That sounds like there was some top-down, or mid-down, culture changing (which can easily happen as a company tries to build a hierarchy, drawing

by neilv 11mo ago

Condolences. That sounds like there was some top-down, or mid-down, culture changing (which can easily happen as a company tries to build a hierarchy, drawing from outside). Another risk is bottom-up culture. You could have your existing leadership the same, but you start hiring ICs who bring their culture with them, and you fail to nurture the desired culture. I think one of the concerns with early startups is if the early engineering leadership hasn't gotten respect and buy-in from the CEO, as the company grows. If the early engineering leadership was doing unusually solid work and culture, but the CEO thinks they are just random fungible commodities, and that now it's time for a different mode, then CEO will probably urinate away all that corporate strength very quickly.

hylaride 11mo ago
The company was founded by an ideas guy (not technical) and the first hire was the (technical) CTO. The CTO set the initial excellent engineering culture. The way I saw it, the founder had no choice but to defer to the engineering team in the beginning because without them there was no future. However, once we started bringing in revenue, the pressure and interference from the CEO started to mount until the CTO essentially got tired of it and moved on. The CEO wasn't even a terrible person, but had trouble dealing with pushback (and I've chatted with him after and he admits he was wrong - he was also in his early 20s during all of this). The CTO position was never replaced and, I'm not making this up, the head of product was made VP of engineering. An external director of engineering was brought in to implement business metrics, tracking, process etc that all answered to this VP of product. Any sense of balance was removed and the highest ranking advocates for tech were team leads. The VP of Eng wasn't necessarily evil, but couldn't or wouldn't do anything that got in the way of business and couldn't convey how important it was to sometimes take a step back. We did alright financially, though. We had an exit (not enough for me to retire, but at 45 I essentially don't have to save for it anymore if that makes sense) and moved on, but the slowed down development meant that some other new ideas were only finally gaining traction when the PE firm gobbled us up. I personally think had things remained as they were, or changed (as companies do need to as they grow) more positively, we'd have been much more successful.
- neilv 11mo ago
  Thanks for the thoughtful observations and insights. That sounds very real. I'm glad you still did OK financially.

by neilv 11mo ago

hylaride 11mo ago

The company was founded by an ideas guy (not technical) and the first hire was the (technical) CTO. The CTO set the initial excellent engineering culture. The way I saw it, the founder had no choice but to defer to the engineering team in the beginning because without them there was no future. However, once we started bringing in revenue, the pressure and interference from the CEO started to mount until the CTO essentially got tired of it and moved on. The CEO wasn't even a terrible person, but had trouble dealing with pushback (and I've chatted with him after and he admits he was wrong - he was also in his early 20s during all of this). The CTO position was never replaced and, I'm not making this up, the head of product was made VP of engineering. An external director of engineering was brought in to implement business metrics, tracking, process etc that all answered to this VP of product. Any sense of balance was removed and the highest ranking advocates for tech were team leads. The VP of Eng wasn't necessarily evil, but couldn't or wouldn't do anything that got in the way of business and couldn't convey how important it was to sometimes take a step back. We did alright financially, though. We had an exit (not enough for me to retire, but at 45 I essentially don't have to save for it anymore if that makes sense) and moved on, but the slowed down development meant that some other new ideas were only finally gaining traction when the PE firm gobbled us up. I personally think had things remained as they were, or changed (as companies do need to as they grow) more positively, we'd have been much more successful.

neilv 11mo ago
Thanks for the thoughtful observations and insights. That sounds very real. I'm glad you still did OK financially.