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How Fast-Growing Startups Can Fix Internal Communication Before It Breaks

28 points by dfine 12y ago

chimeracoder 12y ago
The article is interesting, though the most amusing part for me was the description of the company itself (URX) and the word "deeplinking". It's funny how in the past few years we've essentially invented both a problem that was already solved fifteen years ago and its solution. Hyperlinks have been around as long as the web has existed - in fact, they could be considered the defining characteristic of the web. In contrast, most of these apps (e.g. news publications) really aren't doing anything that can't be done on a regular webpage on a mobile device, and yet we have to have an app for everyt site, which of course means breaking hyperlinks[0]. Of course, as always, Randall Munroe explains this more succintly and with much more wit[1]. [0] Android's "intents" are a sort-of solution to this, but it still raises the question of why this problem exists in the first place. [1] https://xkcd.com/1367/ https://xkcd.com/1367/
birken 12y ago
Not to be too negative as I think all of these things are theoretically good, but they are all just copying things Google does, and Google is a much better example of a successful company than a 20 person startup. FYI I'm sure many companies were all doing these things before Google, they are just an easy example. 1) Google moderator was invented because it was used internally for Google's TGIF (which is essentially a giant version of the "contrarian office hours") 2) Google obviously has tons of tech talks of many different topics that are not only available to people in the company but are often posted to youtube for everybody 3) 1:1s are great (this isn't just common to Google but practically any well-managed company), but if this company reaches 100 employees then there is no way the CEO will be able to have effective meetings with everybody, and it probably wouldn't be a good use of time either. At that time they will need to come up with a sane management structure (very hard) that hasn't been required yet. Also my favorite part is: “We tell our employees to check their egos at the door, so as a company we need to do the same thing,” Coming from the CEO, in an article talking about almost exclusively about how great he is, which includes 2 pictures of himself and 0 pictures of anybody else on his team.
- state 12y ago
  > Coming from the CEO, in an article talking about almost exclusively about how great he is, which includes 2 pictures of himself and 0 pictures of anybody else on his team. This is quite well directed criticism. The article is one of those pieces that really directs your attention to what it's telling you, but what it's showing you is just a puff piece about URX and their series A.
inthewoods 12y ago
"We’re building a business and a product that has never existed in the market before. There’s no precedent," I always find these kind of statements amazing. No precedent at all?

28 points by dfine 12y ago

The article is interesting, though the most amusing part for me was the description of the company itself (URX) and the word "deeplinking". It's funny how in the past few years we've essentially invented both a problem that was already solved fifteen years ago and its solution. Hyperlinks have been around as long as the web has existed - in fact, they could be considered the defining characteristic of the web. In contrast, most of these apps (e.g. news publications) really aren't doing anything that can't be done on a regular webpage on a mobile device, and yet we have to have an app for everyt site, which of course means breaking hyperlinks[0]. Of course, as always, Randall Munroe explains this more succintly and with much more wit[1]. [0] Android's "intents" are a sort-of solution to this, but it still raises the question of why this problem exists in the first place. [1] https://xkcd.com/1367/ https://xkcd.com/1367/

birken 12y ago

Not to be too negative as I think all of these things are theoretically good, but they are all just copying things Google does, and Google is a much better example of a successful company than a 20 person startup. FYI I'm sure many companies were all doing these things before Google, they are just an easy example. 1) Google moderator was invented because it was used internally for Google's TGIF (which is essentially a giant version of the "contrarian office hours") 2) Google obviously has tons of tech talks of many different topics that are not only available to people in the company but are often posted to youtube for everybody 3) 1:1s are great (this isn't just common to Google but practically any well-managed company), but if this company reaches 100 employees then there is no way the CEO will be able to have effective meetings with everybody, and it probably wouldn't be a good use of time either. At that time they will need to come up with a sane management structure (very hard) that hasn't been required yet. Also my favorite part is: “We tell our employees to check their egos at the door, so as a company we need to do the same thing,” Coming from the CEO, in an article talking about almost exclusively about how great he is, which includes 2 pictures of himself and 0 pictures of anybody else on his team.

state 12y ago
> Coming from the CEO, in an article talking about almost exclusively about how great he is, which includes 2 pictures of himself and 0 pictures of anybody else on his team. This is quite well directed criticism. The article is one of those pieces that really directs your attention to what it's telling you, but what it's showing you is just a puff piece about URX and their series A.

inthewoods 12y ago

"We’re building a business and a product that has never existed in the market before. There’s no precedent," I always find these kind of statements amazing. No precedent at all?