8 ms·

Organizational debt is like technical debt, but worse

229 points by webhat 11y ago

jawns 11y ago
Another reason why organizational debt can be worse than technical debt is that often in the case of technical debt, the engineers know what the proper solution is, but given time constrains, they opt for a solution that merely meets their current needs. But with organizational debt, often the immature company does not even know what the proper solution would be. And then, of course, there are cases of both technical debt and organizational debt where the people in charge don't even realize that they've incurred debt. They think they do have the optimal solution.
pckspcks 11y ago
I'm at a startup where I found out a junior hire -- worse in every way than myself and several steps down in title -- is making at least 30% more than I am. It's a strange position. I've started polishing my resume as a result.
- pmccall777 11y ago
  "Worse in every way than myself." Well, I mean, obviously not in every way.
  - aharrison 11y ago
    We knew what he meant, which was the point of the communication. He is making a general observation about data, not a formal proof.
    - pmahoney 11y ago
      I think pmccall is alluding to skills such as better negotiating skills, ability to sell one's self, and similar.
      - kevingadd 11y ago
        That or they literally just started later in the company's lifespan, thus getting a higher salary... c'mon. Occam's razor.
        spectrum1234 11y ago
        exactly. especially since he alluded to this in the article
      - verbin217 11y ago
        Often it's simply dependent on when you were hired. Employers have to stay competitive but won't give you a raise if you don't express discontent. When wages trend upward new hires can often end up making more money.
        arielm 11y ago
        That's pretty much true, but in the more "responsible" startups an employee who's been around long enough would be compensated with equity (or the equivalent in benefits) to compensate for the difference.
        justabystander 11y ago
        You would be surprised about how few "responsible" startups there are. Most will never be responsible until they're under scrutiny. I've been with a few that actively derided the idea of compensating employees who were underpaid during the initial growth phases. They thought that because they'd agreed to help "build the business" that nothing more was owed in better times. One of them got a lot of press as a successful startup and landed several new large contracts. Which is why, after a year of executive self-congratulations and bonuses, their lead developer, who had saved several failed projects singlehandedly, left for more realistic pastures. They only brought him up to just below market when he talked about leaving, had no intentions about rewarding him for past underpaid accomplishments (which were obviously investments on his part), and despite their poor compensation packages had an overly strict culture for non-executives. Management compensation was top priority, and retention was assumed - they thought people would just stay despite having better alternatives. Even if he stayed, he'd have to watch other people get screwed. He wasn't the first, and doubtless he won't be the last rat to abandon that ship. I left as well, seeing that they really didn't care about anyone who didn't have ownership and a briefcase. It's really not that uncommon. Being at the top of a company requires only one of three things: luck, lies ("charisma") or capital. Quite a lot of new business owners get mislead by their own kool-aid. They start believing that their vague "vision" is the most important thing and treat the people who do the real work as replaceable cogs. They give no thought to training costs or productivity and have high turnover rates. Merely treating the staff better could have a huge and positive financial impact. They'd probably know about these management issues if they didn't defensively fire people who voiced dissent. But a fool and his competent staff are soon parted.
  - cpks 11y ago
    I saw a sheet of salaries for a random subset of employees. Pre-funding engineering hires were universally paid substantially less than post-funding hires. The way we're structured, there isn't an equity upside which would cover the difference. If this was a one-off, you could chalk it up to hiring error, negotiations, Dunning-Kruger with regards to estimate of my own skills, etc. However, even myself excluded, a few of our best engineers are being paid substantially less than people much worse than people hired later on. It was pretty universal.
- achille2 11y ago
  Curious to know how you found out, and why you don't bring it up with your manager. This is why Spolksy has his tiered plans where everyone gets paid the same (hiring someone at a higher payrate means raising everyones pay) http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090401/how-hard-could-it-be-employees-negotiate-pay-raises.html http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090401/how-hard-could-it-be-em...
  - cpks 11y ago
    Honestly, I just found out, and I am trying to figure out when and how to bring this up. It feels like there are several good timings for bringing this up: 1. When I've just delivered something of high business value 2. When the company is really needs me to deliver something of high value 3. Annual review 4. Right before quarterly/annual budgets 5. When I have a competing offer I've asked for a raise, not too long ago, without any information in hand about competing salaries. That conversation did not lead to a pay increase. I found out -- not long after that conversation -- that the post-funding folks make substantially more than the pre-funding folks. Salary aside, it is an excellent job. I enjoy working there, believe in the mission, and I am relatively unlikely to leave for a more lucrative offer. I think management knows that, which is why they don't feel the need to pay myself (or other early employees) market rates. Management pays the least an employee will work for.
    - tjradcliffe 11y ago
      Management is hoping to keep employees happy by maintaining them in a state of ignorance, which never works. That is not a good sign. Think carefully and explicitly about the decision-making processes that could have plausibly created this situation where people doing the same stuff get paid substantially different amounts. Think about the values reflected by those processes, and the odds that the company does not have some major storms ahead given the people at the helm.
    - blindhippo 11y ago
      Same thing happened to me. I gave my company a choice: raise my salary/title to reflect the new hierarchy or lose me to a competitive offer. They fed me a line about how the company was making money, but not enough to raise everyone's salary (translation: we don't think you can get a competitive offer). I took another job 3 weeks later for 25% more money + actual equity (not bullshit stock options). Startups can be fun, but in terms of compensation, the early employees will get screwed over.
- drawkbox 11y ago
  This is the lesson that proves loyalty has negative value these days.
brobdingnagian 11y ago
Where is the evidence that technical debt, let alone organizational debt, is actually related to the economic indicators of success?
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - brobdingnagian 11y ago
    I'm not at all convinced. If incurring a bunch of technical debt makes your company rich, then it was worth it, and it shouldn't really be considered debt.
    - ams6110 11y ago
      Being worth it doesn't mean it isn't debt, or that it doesn't need to be dealt with.
    - kevingadd 11y ago
      Do you understand what debt is? Taking out cash loans is essential for many small businesses and startups, and it's worth it, but it's still debt. The bill comes due eventually. The point isn't that you shouldn't accumulate debt (doing so is impossible in the first place, generally speaking) - it's that you need to be aware about it and make plans to pay it down regularly so it doesn't come due and bankrupt you.
    - brobdingnagian 11y ago
      Your brain has incurred all sorts of technical debt. And yet here we are. Technical debt as is typically bandied about is essentially pseudoscience, like most hard positions on software development. It's something you say to make yourself feel cool and look smart, but it's not evidence-based reasoning.
      - cerberusss 11y ago
        Huh? Are you actually a developer? Here is a real life example of technical debt holding back a company. I am working on an app that allows pilots report damage to their aircraft. The app has some technical debt, namely: they built a custom user interface framework in the iOS 3.X era. Yes, it's an old app. They never fixed it and asked me to update it and include a lookup table for several fields. It takes too much time (est. a week or two), while in modern code, it would be easy for any developer because you could use the standard Interface Builder tool by Apple (est. a day). That's technical debt. It's real.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
fsloth 11y ago
What areas of organizational technical debt are there? I counted the piece raised three: unmanaged compensation schemes, lack of systematic onboarding, lack of keeping tally on the most promising employèes and making them know they are valued. I think there is also a typical pattern that perhaps is too trivial yet not that all too uncommon - lack of organizational restructuring as a company grows (the startup style where some people do everything can create bottlenecks and very high risk bus factors). Are there any others?
- arielm 11y ago
  I think a very important aspect of scaling is separating responsibilities. In most startups it's often the case that a single person takes on multiple tasks. Those make sense in the early stages, but as the company grows they become a limiting factor. The problem is that some people get comfortable doing multiple roles. That however means that they can only invest a fraction of their time. This means that early on the company gets something, which is better than nothing, but as it grows it's only getting something and that's not enough. This is applicable to most potosi on, but becomes org debt when the founder(s) don't "replace" themselves.
hliyan 11y ago
Just like with technical debt, there is a risk of refactoring organizational debt wrong, or over-refactoring. I believe it happened where I once worked. It worked beautifully as a small company, but when the workforce started exceeding 100, the need for better HRM, more formal performance evaluation, better defined reporting hierarchies and career paths became evident. A lot of processes were introduced, but the way it was done induced culture shock in people who had been in the company a long time. I think we lost a few good brains as a result.
- girvo 11y ago
  There's an argument to be made that those good brains that the company lost were necessary to lose; I know myself that a business can hit this point, I've been there myself as an employee when it happened. I'm one of those developers that isn't a fan of big formal-ish companies, so I leave when that happens -- that's not a bad thing, as keeping me there will frustrate me and the business long term. Those processes can be super necessary however, so I don't begrudge places the institute them, unless they do it far too soon of course.
  - keithpeter 11y ago
    Quote from OA "Some employees don’t scale from “Search” to this new phase of “Build”." Perhaps a 'film crew' mentality (and reward structure) is needed? The crew comes in, does the project, has the wrap party and goes onto the next project. The 'day staff' take over afterwards.
    - monk_e_boy 11y ago
      Sure, some people are attracted to the chaos of a startup who are just get on and build something. These are different people who are custodians and cherish the business and strengthen it.
  - hliyan 11y ago
    I'm one of those developers that isn't a fan of big formal-ish companies I'm a bit more amphibious than you in that regard, I guess. I can stomach (or even welcome) paperwork and formality when it's introduced with an explanation/rationale. It also helps when staff is consulted before sweeping process changes are introduced.
drawkbox 11y ago
Organizational debt can create technical debt and may be the single biggest cause. Even if you make it with technical debt, somewhere in your org, someone's life is worse because of that technical debt, but the cause was probably organizational debt. The good employees see it sooner and suffer it longer or leave before others see it. A downward spiral in other words with entropy increasing.
- pan69 11y ago
  > Organizational debt can create technical debt and may be the single biggest cause. I agree with this. E.g. an organisation without a clear and concrete vision (but with a lot of fantasy) is inherently creating technical debt since it's unclear to the developers what exactly needs to build and what the important parts are. It's usually that within these organisations every other week a new feature is dreamt up by management that HAS to be included asap or the company might miss out to the competition. Usually management in these type of organisations also LOVE Agile which to them pretty much means; just make shit up as you go along.
  - wFU8oB6RUUSL 11y ago
    Exactly on the vision and fantasy. Worse on the consequence: lots of "new" features are TOP 1, and the last unfinished top 1 just been cancelled in its first week. Agile though, those sprints are never called failed, but move on like nothing changed.
- arthurjj 11y ago
  This sound's like an application of Conway's law. Sometimes you make a bad technical decision because the "right" way involves to many political fights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law
overgard 11y ago
This is why if you're joining a startup as an employee you should ask for either a competitive market salary or real equity (not the insultingly low amount that normally gets offered as equity -- an actual stake). I think a lot of people join startups and take a bad deal because they think the company will take care of them when the company makes it. Or they think they'll have more opportunity for promotions in the startup because of its small size and their early stake. The problem is usually executive roles are filled from outside the company rather than from internal promotions, and as this article illustrates, the founders don't necessarily care about the people at the bottom until it's bluntly pointed out to them how mass departures could fuck up the business.
- tallerholler 11y ago
  I'm curious for you to expand on what you mean by real equity? I was hired as the first backend developer at an enterprise startup last August. they told me they were securing next round of funding (all family money so far) by end sept/oct and at that point id get market salary (Ive been at ~40% less since hire). in november when it was clear we wouldn't have the funding or revenue to raise salaries, I negotiated another point in equity and higher six figure salary when we do get funding/or revenue. we agreed (me and CEO) that we would reevaluate things in April. now it's almost June and I still held off on having our next talk bc even though we launched a month ago, were still another 1-2 months away from realistically getting revenue. I am at 2% equity which he says is more than any other employer but I'm not sure what my next move is. I'm senior level full stack and do much more than I was hired for from client to backend to devops and helping lead. if I stay longer, how much equity should I go for? again I was told my salary would go to market by sept/oct last year prior to me starting... thanks!
  - gaius 11y ago
    Yeah... all those promises were what are technically known in the industry as "lies". You will never see a market level salary or even a raise, and once that 2% equity has been through dilution it will be more like 0.2% at most. Sorry, but there's no way this situation will play out well for you. Another thing you probably don't want to hear is that you are not "senior level" if you lack the experience to have figured this out for yourself. Not even close. You can learn from this and never be played like a sucker again, but many people it takes 2 or 3 goes around to realize. But it's fine for the CEO, there'll be another 22-year-old around to take this deal in a year.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
This is a great read and I recommend it to anyone in the 'build' phase of their company. The thing that always amazes me is how the organization of a company can enhance or limit what they can build in technology.

229 points by webhat 11y ago

jawns 11y ago

Another reason why organizational debt can be worse than technical debt is that often in the case of technical debt, the engineers know what the proper solution is, but given time constrains, they opt for a solution that merely meets their current needs. But with organizational debt, often the immature company does not even know what the proper solution would be. And then, of course, there are cases of both technical debt and organizational debt where the people in charge don't even realize that they've incurred debt. They think they do have the optimal solution.

pckspcks 11y ago

I'm at a startup where I found out a junior hire -- worse in every way than myself and several steps down in title -- is making at least 30% more than I am. It's a strange position. I've started polishing my resume as a result.

pmccall777 11y ago
"Worse in every way than myself." Well, I mean, obviously not in every way.
- aharrison 11y ago
  We knew what he meant, which was the point of the communication. He is making a general observation about data, not a formal proof.
  - pmahoney 11y ago
    I think pmccall is alluding to skills such as better negotiating skills, ability to sell one's self, and similar.
    - kevingadd 11y ago
      That or they literally just started later in the company's lifespan, thus getting a higher salary... c'mon. Occam's razor.
      - spectrum1234 11y ago
        exactly. especially since he alluded to this in the article
    - verbin217 11y ago
      Often it's simply dependent on when you were hired. Employers have to stay competitive but won't give you a raise if you don't express discontent. When wages trend upward new hires can often end up making more money.
      - arielm 11y ago
        That's pretty much true, but in the more "responsible" startups an employee who's been around long enough would be compensated with equity (or the equivalent in benefits) to compensate for the difference.
        justabystander 11y ago
        You would be surprised about how few "responsible" startups there are. Most will never be responsible until they're under scrutiny. I've been with a few that actively derided the idea of compensating employees who were underpaid during the initial growth phases. They thought that because they'd agreed to help "build the business" that nothing more was owed in better times. One of them got a lot of press as a successful startup and landed several new large contracts. Which is why, after a year of executive self-congratulations and bonuses, their lead developer, who had saved several failed projects singlehandedly, left for more realistic pastures. They only brought him up to just below market when he talked about leaving, had no intentions about rewarding him for past underpaid accomplishments (which were obviously investments on his part), and despite their poor compensation packages had an overly strict culture for non-executives. Management compensation was top priority, and retention was assumed - they thought people would just stay despite having better alternatives. Even if he stayed, he'd have to watch other people get screwed. He wasn't the first, and doubtless he won't be the last rat to abandon that ship. I left as well, seeing that they really didn't care about anyone who didn't have ownership and a briefcase. It's really not that uncommon. Being at the top of a company requires only one of three things: luck, lies ("charisma") or capital. Quite a lot of new business owners get mislead by their own kool-aid. They start believing that their vague "vision" is the most important thing and treat the people who do the real work as replaceable cogs. They give no thought to training costs or productivity and have high turnover rates. Merely treating the staff better could have a huge and positive financial impact. They'd probably know about these management issues if they didn't defensively fire people who voiced dissent. But a fool and his competent staff are soon parted.
- cpks 11y ago
  I saw a sheet of salaries for a random subset of employees. Pre-funding engineering hires were universally paid substantially less than post-funding hires. The way we're structured, there isn't an equity upside which would cover the difference. If this was a one-off, you could chalk it up to hiring error, negotiations, Dunning-Kruger with regards to estimate of my own skills, etc. However, even myself excluded, a few of our best engineers are being paid substantially less than people much worse than people hired later on. It was pretty universal.
achille2 11y ago
Curious to know how you found out, and why you don't bring it up with your manager. This is why Spolksy has his tiered plans where everyone gets paid the same (hiring someone at a higher payrate means raising everyones pay) http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090401/how-hard-could-it-be-employees-negotiate-pay-raises.html http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090401/how-hard-could-it-be-em...
- cpks 11y ago
  Honestly, I just found out, and I am trying to figure out when and how to bring this up. It feels like there are several good timings for bringing this up: 1. When I've just delivered something of high business value 2. When the company is really needs me to deliver something of high value 3. Annual review 4. Right before quarterly/annual budgets 5. When I have a competing offer I've asked for a raise, not too long ago, without any information in hand about competing salaries. That conversation did not lead to a pay increase. I found out -- not long after that conversation -- that the post-funding folks make substantially more than the pre-funding folks. Salary aside, it is an excellent job. I enjoy working there, believe in the mission, and I am relatively unlikely to leave for a more lucrative offer. I think management knows that, which is why they don't feel the need to pay myself (or other early employees) market rates. Management pays the least an employee will work for.
  - tjradcliffe 11y ago
    Management is hoping to keep employees happy by maintaining them in a state of ignorance, which never works. That is not a good sign. Think carefully and explicitly about the decision-making processes that could have plausibly created this situation where people doing the same stuff get paid substantially different amounts. Think about the values reflected by those processes, and the odds that the company does not have some major storms ahead given the people at the helm.
  - blindhippo 11y ago
    Same thing happened to me. I gave my company a choice: raise my salary/title to reflect the new hierarchy or lose me to a competitive offer. They fed me a line about how the company was making money, but not enough to raise everyone's salary (translation: we don't think you can get a competitive offer). I took another job 3 weeks later for 25% more money + actual equity (not bullshit stock options). Startups can be fun, but in terms of compensation, the early employees will get screwed over.
drawkbox 11y ago
This is the lesson that proves loyalty has negative value these days.

brobdingnagian 11y ago

Where is the evidence that technical debt, let alone organizational debt, is actually related to the economic indicators of success?

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- brobdingnagian 11y ago
  I'm not at all convinced. If incurring a bunch of technical debt makes your company rich, then it was worth it, and it shouldn't really be considered debt.
  - ams6110 11y ago
    Being worth it doesn't mean it isn't debt, or that it doesn't need to be dealt with.
  - kevingadd 11y ago
    Do you understand what debt is? Taking out cash loans is essential for many small businesses and startups, and it's worth it, but it's still debt. The bill comes due eventually. The point isn't that you shouldn't accumulate debt (doing so is impossible in the first place, generally speaking) - it's that you need to be aware about it and make plans to pay it down regularly so it doesn't come due and bankrupt you.
  - brobdingnagian 11y ago
    Your brain has incurred all sorts of technical debt. And yet here we are. Technical debt as is typically bandied about is essentially pseudoscience, like most hard positions on software development. It's something you say to make yourself feel cool and look smart, but it's not evidence-based reasoning.
    - cerberusss 11y ago
      Huh? Are you actually a developer? Here is a real life example of technical debt holding back a company. I am working on an app that allows pilots report damage to their aircraft. The app has some technical debt, namely: they built a custom user interface framework in the iOS 3.X era. Yes, it's an old app. They never fixed it and asked me to update it and include a lookup table for several fields. It takes too much time (est. a week or two), while in modern code, it would be easy for any developer because you could use the standard Interface Builder tool by Apple (est. a day). That's technical debt. It's real.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

fsloth 11y ago

What areas of organizational technical debt are there? I counted the piece raised three: unmanaged compensation schemes, lack of systematic onboarding, lack of keeping tally on the most promising employèes and making them know they are valued. I think there is also a typical pattern that perhaps is too trivial yet not that all too uncommon - lack of organizational restructuring as a company grows (the startup style where some people do everything can create bottlenecks and very high risk bus factors). Are there any others?

arielm 11y ago
I think a very important aspect of scaling is separating responsibilities. In most startups it's often the case that a single person takes on multiple tasks. Those make sense in the early stages, but as the company grows they become a limiting factor. The problem is that some people get comfortable doing multiple roles. That however means that they can only invest a fraction of their time. This means that early on the company gets something, which is better than nothing, but as it grows it's only getting something and that's not enough. This is applicable to most potosi on, but becomes org debt when the founder(s) don't "replace" themselves.

hliyan 11y ago

Just like with technical debt, there is a risk of refactoring organizational debt wrong, or over-refactoring. I believe it happened where I once worked. It worked beautifully as a small company, but when the workforce started exceeding 100, the need for better HRM, more formal performance evaluation, better defined reporting hierarchies and career paths became evident. A lot of processes were introduced, but the way it was done induced culture shock in people who had been in the company a long time. I think we lost a few good brains as a result.

girvo 11y ago
There's an argument to be made that those good brains that the company lost were necessary to lose; I know myself that a business can hit this point, I've been there myself as an employee when it happened. I'm one of those developers that isn't a fan of big formal-ish companies, so I leave when that happens -- that's not a bad thing, as keeping me there will frustrate me and the business long term. Those processes can be super necessary however, so I don't begrudge places the institute them, unless they do it far too soon of course.
- keithpeter 11y ago
  Quote from OA "Some employees don’t scale from “Search” to this new phase of “Build”." Perhaps a 'film crew' mentality (and reward structure) is needed? The crew comes in, does the project, has the wrap party and goes onto the next project. The 'day staff' take over afterwards.
  - monk_e_boy 11y ago
    Sure, some people are attracted to the chaos of a startup who are just get on and build something. These are different people who are custodians and cherish the business and strengthen it.
- hliyan 11y ago
  I'm one of those developers that isn't a fan of big formal-ish companies I'm a bit more amphibious than you in that regard, I guess. I can stomach (or even welcome) paperwork and formality when it's introduced with an explanation/rationale. It also helps when staff is consulted before sweeping process changes are introduced.

drawkbox 11y ago

Organizational debt can create technical debt and may be the single biggest cause. Even if you make it with technical debt, somewhere in your org, someone's life is worse because of that technical debt, but the cause was probably organizational debt. The good employees see it sooner and suffer it longer or leave before others see it. A downward spiral in other words with entropy increasing.

pan69 11y ago
> Organizational debt can create technical debt and may be the single biggest cause. I agree with this. E.g. an organisation without a clear and concrete vision (but with a lot of fantasy) is inherently creating technical debt since it's unclear to the developers what exactly needs to build and what the important parts are. It's usually that within these organisations every other week a new feature is dreamt up by management that HAS to be included asap or the company might miss out to the competition. Usually management in these type of organisations also LOVE Agile which to them pretty much means; just make shit up as you go along.
- wFU8oB6RUUSL 11y ago
  Exactly on the vision and fantasy. Worse on the consequence: lots of "new" features are TOP 1, and the last unfinished top 1 just been cancelled in its first week. Agile though, those sprints are never called failed, but move on like nothing changed.
arthurjj 11y ago
This sound's like an application of Conway's law. Sometimes you make a bad technical decision because the "right" way involves to many political fights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law

overgard 11y ago

This is why if you're joining a startup as an employee you should ask for either a competitive market salary or real equity (not the insultingly low amount that normally gets offered as equity -- an actual stake). I think a lot of people join startups and take a bad deal because they think the company will take care of them when the company makes it. Or they think they'll have more opportunity for promotions in the startup because of its small size and their early stake. The problem is usually executive roles are filled from outside the company rather than from internal promotions, and as this article illustrates, the founders don't necessarily care about the people at the bottom until it's bluntly pointed out to them how mass departures could fuck up the business.

tallerholler 11y ago
I'm curious for you to expand on what you mean by real equity? I was hired as the first backend developer at an enterprise startup last August. they told me they were securing next round of funding (all family money so far) by end sept/oct and at that point id get market salary (Ive been at ~40% less since hire). in november when it was clear we wouldn't have the funding or revenue to raise salaries, I negotiated another point in equity and higher six figure salary when we do get funding/or revenue. we agreed (me and CEO) that we would reevaluate things in April. now it's almost June and I still held off on having our next talk bc even though we launched a month ago, were still another 1-2 months away from realistically getting revenue. I am at 2% equity which he says is more than any other employer but I'm not sure what my next move is. I'm senior level full stack and do much more than I was hired for from client to backend to devops and helping lead. if I stay longer, how much equity should I go for? again I was told my salary would go to market by sept/oct last year prior to me starting... thanks!
- gaius 11y ago
  Yeah... all those promises were what are technically known in the industry as "lies". You will never see a market level salary or even a raise, and once that 2% equity has been through dilution it will be more like 0.2% at most. Sorry, but there's no way this situation will play out well for you. Another thing you probably don't want to hear is that you are not "senior level" if you lack the experience to have figured this out for yourself. Not even close. You can learn from this and never be played like a sucker again, but many people it takes 2 or 3 goes around to realize. But it's fine for the CEO, there'll be another 22-year-old around to take this deal in a year.

ChuckMcM 11y ago

This is a great read and I recommend it to anyone in the 'build' phase of their company. The thing that always amazes me is how the organization of a company can enhance or limit what they can build in technology.