Institutions try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution

Re:Institutions try to preserve the problem to which they ar... by Xcelerate on Monday February 26, 2024 @05:03AM (#39509450)

> When you communicate, it’s not enough to explain a solution. You have to painstakingly help others internalize the problem.

This is why I think startups or small groups of people are still able to outcompete bigger incumbents. So many people worry “if I share my great idea, someone will steal it and implement it!”

Far more often I’ve found it to be the case that I catch myself wondering if it would be less work to start a competitor to my current company based on my idea rather than continue attempting to translate it, broadcast it, and massage it into some form that convinces a critical mass of coworkers of its value such that it eventually turns into action.

At least by starting my own company, I’ll know pretty quickly whether it was actually a good idea or not.

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Re:Institutions try to preserve the problem to which they ar... by catlifeonmars on Thursday February 29, 2024 @08:49PM (#39557585)

> This is why I think startups or small groups of people are still able to outcompete bigger incumbents.

For sure. The overhead for communication is much lower. It’s possible to emulate this to some extent at a large company (I worked at AWS previously) by keeping teams small (6-10 people) while keeping team scope large (full lifecycle of an entire product family or vertical). For this to be successful I believe you need to give the team autonomy to decide what product and features to build, and room to fail without repercussions to allow for experimentation and calculated risk taking.

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