Re:After working at a startup, I'll never work at a big comp...
by matt_s on Thursday September 01, 2011 @09:17AM
(#2949869)
I work at an extremely large company - over 100k people across the globe. When companies get this big, it feels like everything takes forever to get done. I was just talking with a coworker how at a small company the RetiredOnTheJob people wouldn't be tolerated.
Funny thing is we used to be in a small group that was empowered to do what it needed to. Then upper manglement decided to centralize a bunch of functions - now we have common ways of doing things that don't meet anyone's needs. So I think as companies grow they need to be more like how the Virgin companies operate - literally separate divisions in a family corporation. Empower and measure each small group to do what they need to and leave them alone.
Required reading is the Gervais Principle here: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o... After reading this, I now can associate 3 times having gone through the MacLeod Life Cycle. Now on the fourth in a growing organization. The org is in the second stage moving into the third and I'm moving from a Loser into the Clueless.
My saving grace is having tough technical problems to solve for my team like 30+ terabytes of files and db, thousands of transactions flowing, making system "Mission Critical", etc. That plus learning iOS development at home keeps me sane.
Funny thing is we used to be in a small group that was empowered to do what it needed to. Then upper manglement decided to centralize a bunch of functions - now we have common ways of doing things that don't meet anyone's needs. So I think as companies grow they need to be more like how the Virgin companies operate - literally separate divisions in a family corporation. Empower and measure each small group to do what they need to and leave them alone.
Required reading is the Gervais Principle here: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o... After reading this, I now can associate 3 times having gone through the MacLeod Life Cycle. Now on the fourth in a growing organization. The org is in the second stage moving into the third and I'm moving from a Loser into the Clueless.
My saving grace is having tough technical problems to solve for my team like 30+ terabytes of files and db, thousands of transactions flowing, making system "Mission Critical", etc. That plus learning iOS development at home keeps me sane.