3 ms·

...it's all about now, now, now. I think this mentality affects all aspects of our lives and society. How do you disrupt this shortsightedness?

nollidge 14y ago
Eh, let's figure it out later.
- 127001brewer 14y ago
  I totally forgot what we're talking about anyway.
michaelochurch 14y ago
Typical corporate rank cultures are short-sighted because they've lost vision and short-term P&L is the only thing that matters. Risk-reductive management means that no one gets to do anything long-term because no one is trusted to bet that much time on anything. VC-istan is based on a get-big-or-die mentality. These companies end up with tight deadlines because they're forced to hire so fast. That makes them panicky and stupid when it comes to operational concerns... and it's bad for culture, but no one cares about "culture" in something that exists to be bought by Yahoo in 3 years. The future isn't going to be built by VC-istan, but by a fleet of ~50,000 small-to-medium businesses formerly called "lifestyle" companies, and the whole ecosystem that grows up to support these "yeoman capitalists". It's going to be built by people that, right now, no one will fund. The problem is that no one will fund these companies now. Bank loans are good for dry cleaners and restaurants that are unlikely to go to total failure. (Half will be closed in 5 years, but most because their owner-managers could do better elsewhere-- opportunity cost.) VC works for a 5% shot at being a billion-dollar concern. Who funds the 30% chance at becoming a 20-person lifestyle company that, while it never makes a billion, pushes technology forward in a major way? No one, yet. There are "moral hazard"/principal-agent problems to be solved, but they aren't that hard. I'm actually addressing that in my 17th part of the Gervais / MacLeod series. I'm between jobs (I have offers, but I'm not working right now) and I've had time to really attack this problem. It'll probably be out around 3:00 today.
- 127001brewer 14y ago
  ...because no one is trusted to bet that much time on anything. Right and, maybe, this partly why a growing number of people do not stay at a company for too long. (I think you mentioned this idea (that, basically, human labor is an easily trade-able commodity) in one of your Gervais / MacLeod posts.)
- bokonist 14y ago
  The future isn't going to be built by VC-istan, but by a fleet of ~50,000 small-to-medium businesses formerly called "lifestyle" companies, The problem is that many technology companies have natural economies of scale. It is not realistic to have a world where you have 1,000 mom and pop search engines instead of 1 Google. One search engine becomes a little better, so more people start to use it, it can make more money, invest in more technology, become even better, get even more users, and eventually the top dog becomes a run away success. Since the entire idea of technology is that you research the novel technique once, and then can use the technology over an entire user base at a low marginal cost, there is a natural economy of scale. There is of course already a very large economy of "lifestyle" businesses. But these businesses are either b) not in the technology business (restaurants, retail, services, etc.) or b) in an extreme niche of technology where there are so few customers the company never grows that big. I really do not see how you can break a Microsoft or Apple, much less a Google or Facebook, into 50,000 smaller businesses.
  - michaelochurch 14y ago
    Google was still an excellent search engine when it had 1/100 of its current codebase. Fifty programmers could deliver something of nearly comparable quality (excluding in-house knowledge that gives it that extra 0.01%). Google's obviously doing a lot more than Web Search, now. Web Search is a Big Problem and, as you said, it's a winner-take-all, red-ocean business. Google managed to come in when the state of the art was horrendous (few considered search to be an interesting problem; it was "solved" but shitty). Now Bing is almost as good as Google, and certainly far better than Google was when it established dominance of Search. You say: I really do not see how you can break a Microsoft or Apple, much less a Google or Facebook, into 50,000 smaller businesses. You don't. Big companies are not going to die out overnight. They'll still be there, they'll still be strong and important, they'll still provide utility and commodity services, but the Big Companies of the mid-21st century might have 3000 employees instead of 25,000. So where will those other 22,000 go? Smaller companies. They'll be more independent. There are a lot of problems that can be solved by technology but require some "niche" competence. Take the emerging field of data science. Machine learning is very powerful, but domain knowledge is still key. There are thousands of domains that are going to be needing what's currently a very high level of data competence (not big data, but smart data for sure) in people who also understand their problems. That makes room for thousands of lifestyle businesses.

nollidge 14y ago

Eh, let's figure it out later.

127001brewer 14y ago
I totally forgot what we're talking about anyway.

michaelochurch 14y ago

Typical corporate rank cultures are short-sighted because they've lost vision and short-term P&L is the only thing that matters. Risk-reductive management means that no one gets to do anything long-term because no one is trusted to bet that much time on anything. VC-istan is based on a get-big-or-die mentality. These companies end up with tight deadlines because they're forced to hire so fast. That makes them panicky and stupid when it comes to operational concerns... and it's bad for culture, but no one cares about "culture" in something that exists to be bought by Yahoo in 3 years. The future isn't going to be built by VC-istan, but by a fleet of ~50,000 small-to-medium businesses formerly called "lifestyle" companies, and the whole ecosystem that grows up to support these "yeoman capitalists". It's going to be built by people that, right now, no one will fund. The problem is that no one will fund these companies now. Bank loans are good for dry cleaners and restaurants that are unlikely to go to total failure. (Half will be closed in 5 years, but most because their owner-managers could do better elsewhere-- opportunity cost.) VC works for a 5% shot at being a billion-dollar concern. Who funds the 30% chance at becoming a 20-person lifestyle company that, while it never makes a billion, pushes technology forward in a major way? No one, yet. There are "moral hazard"/principal-agent problems to be solved, but they aren't that hard. I'm actually addressing that in my 17th part of the Gervais / MacLeod series. I'm between jobs (I have offers, but I'm not working right now) and I've had time to really attack this problem. It'll probably be out around 3:00 today.

127001brewer 14y ago
...because no one is trusted to bet that much time on anything. Right and, maybe, this partly why a growing number of people do not stay at a company for too long. (I think you mentioned this idea (that, basically, human labor is an easily trade-able commodity) in one of your Gervais / MacLeod posts.)
bokonist 14y ago
The future isn't going to be built by VC-istan, but by a fleet of ~50,000 small-to-medium businesses formerly called "lifestyle" companies, The problem is that many technology companies have natural economies of scale. It is not realistic to have a world where you have 1,000 mom and pop search engines instead of 1 Google. One search engine becomes a little better, so more people start to use it, it can make more money, invest in more technology, become even better, get even more users, and eventually the top dog becomes a run away success. Since the entire idea of technology is that you research the novel technique once, and then can use the technology over an entire user base at a low marginal cost, there is a natural economy of scale. There is of course already a very large economy of "lifestyle" businesses. But these businesses are either b) not in the technology business (restaurants, retail, services, etc.) or b) in an extreme niche of technology where there are so few customers the company never grows that big. I really do not see how you can break a Microsoft or Apple, much less a Google or Facebook, into 50,000 smaller businesses.
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  Google was still an excellent search engine when it had 1/100 of its current codebase. Fifty programmers could deliver something of nearly comparable quality (excluding in-house knowledge that gives it that extra 0.01%). Google's obviously doing a lot more than Web Search, now. Web Search is a Big Problem and, as you said, it's a winner-take-all, red-ocean business. Google managed to come in when the state of the art was horrendous (few considered search to be an interesting problem; it was "solved" but shitty). Now Bing is almost as good as Google, and certainly far better than Google was when it established dominance of Search. You say: I really do not see how you can break a Microsoft or Apple, much less a Google or Facebook, into 50,000 smaller businesses. You don't. Big companies are not going to die out overnight. They'll still be there, they'll still be strong and important, they'll still provide utility and commodity services, but the Big Companies of the mid-21st century might have 3000 employees instead of 25,000. So where will those other 22,000 go? Smaller companies. They'll be more independent. There are a lot of problems that can be solved by technology but require some "niche" competence. Take the emerging field of data science. Machine learning is very powerful, but domain knowledge is still key. There are thousands of domains that are going to be needing what's currently a very high level of data competence (not big data, but smart data for sure) in people who also understand their problems. That makes room for thousands of lifestyle businesses.