Re:Slack has raised our charges by $195k per year
by mr_tristan on Thursday September 18, 2025 @12:54PM
(#45291997)
Yeah, I think there's a lot more "good, focused" companies out there than what are covered in this hidden champions book. The book is just interesting to me. It highlights a lot of the economic export strength of Germany isn't due to the large corporations that people know, but a bunch of mid-sized companies people don't.
In some sense, what seems important is a business culture that has a mission or meaning to exist other than make shareholders money. I'd wager their employees will absolutely geek out about what the companies do throughout the organization. A lot of corporations these days, once you get above a couple of layers of management, is all fluff. I can't think of the last time I talked to a mid-level or above "engineering" manager in a tech company about any nuanced or interesting discussion about technology.
Strix became less hidden for me personally after listening to The Life Scientific interview with John Taylor [1]. There is plenty of fascinating information, probably because Jim Al-Khalili is a great scientific interviewer. Recently, I recalled it in the context of AI, self-driving, and safety. Strix controllers have a second level of protection if the main automatic shut-off circuit fails. That’s probably why we never hear of fires or other incidents due to a failed Strix controller.
[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b42z87