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Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

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Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#111

Post by kelnos »

I hate to say it, but, in agreement with many others here, this isn't all that unusual. It's probably on the worse end of normal, but isn't abnormal.

What do you do? Well, I assume you have some sort of retention bonus or stock lockup that requires you to stay for a while if you want the money, so decide if it's worth it to you to stay, and quit if not.

If you decide to stay, you'll have to find a way to remove yourself emotionally from this work for a while. Stop caring about how long things take, and coast for a bit. Rearrange your time so you front-load things that you can do on your own, without onerous process or others' permission. Try to anticipate things you'll need to get done that will require coordination or help from other teams, and start that process as soon as you can.

I agree it's frustrating, and not what you're used to, but if the money is good enough such that you want to stick around for a bit, you'll have to adapt both your attitude and how you organize your work.

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#112

Post by tyre »

CogitoCogito wrote: post #94
_skel wrote: post #37

> So I reach out to the manager and ask what is going on. This is a simple task, I said. Why does it take an entire quarter for your team to deliver? He doesn't have an answer. Your simple task, which you think would only take a few days to implement, is probably one request in a long queue of requests that team is dealing with. That means they won't be able to start on it for a long time. That team probably set up t…

> Take this as a learning experience: don't assume that you are at a startup where people will drop everything to handle a request from you right away. This doesn't explain why they wouldn't accept the offer of work from /u/lopkeny12ko. I've been in the same situation multiple times. Sometimes I've been allowed to do the work and sometimes not. In the cases where I was allowed to do the work, I certainly took longer…

> This doesn't explain why they wouldn't accept the offer of work from /u/lopkeny12ko.

I believe the manager explains it right after that. They have compliance reasons that not just anyone can access this codebase. It's also possible that the manager has acquiesced to types of requests before and it was a mess — new engineer doesn't understand they system, requirements of its scale (note that this is a new engineer from a startup so the world that they are familiar with is not this one), and either 1) needs hand-holding 2) has code that doesn't meet their standards and requires extensive code review back-and-forth.

There are many reasons why, "let me into your codebase" isn't a priority for the team you're talking to. Many legitimate, reasonable reasons.

> It doesn't sound to me like they're taking advantage of your skills.

Working as part of a large organization _is_ a skill. One that the OP doesn't seem to have. Which is understandable; they themselves said that they have always worked at startups. You can't walk into an entirely different context with challenges you're not familiar with, then expect to behave the same way and get the results you're used to.

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#113

Post by perlgeek »

> What should I do?

The obvious solution: if it drives you nuts, quit.

If you don't plan to go that route, do two things you:

1) tell your direct superior (in writing)

2) whenever you get asked "why aren't you done with this migration", answer "we're blocked by $X" with a reference to their issue tracker / ticket system / whatever.

... and then work on something else.

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#114

Post by talolard »

I worked at Citi for a while and this pain sounds familiar. It once took me 6 months of hounding an MD to get approval for my app to connect to a particular database.

It sounds like you're very motivated and presumably talented, but the organizational friction doesn't really allow for your blessings to shine.

On the other hand, this is the reality for many many people and many many dollars. It's a great opportunity to both develop empathy for a kind of user you never imagined (all those people trapped in these processes for life) and to learn new ways to excel, within the context you're currently in.

When I was at Citi I learned a lot about communicating with stakeholders and fostering internal relationships which has been very useful in my career. Maybe you can find the same there ?

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#115

Post by theshrike79 »

davidw wrote: post #68

I did some work for a Large Company. One Monday I try and log in, and my hyper-secure laptop won't let me do anything. Try a few more times and then call my immediate manager, wondering if they've let me go or something. Nope, they're aware of the glitch and are working on it. I hang out and wait. Call again before lunch. Nothing. Still nothing at the end of the day. I call again the next morning. "Still working on i…

Mid-size companies are where it's at.

The huge ones (1k+ employees) are way too big and unwieldy and you'll get lost in the bureaucracy and get fed up with all the people promoted based on the Peter Principle. Good stuff if you want a peaceful-ish place to work at, maybe you have small kids at home and just want to work 9-5 and bring zero work home.

In small ones (dozens) you tend to become the smartest person in the room too quickly, you also usually need to be a jack of all trades and have very little advancement options. On the other hand you can do all the cool stuff and break stuff =) Work-life balance usually doesn't exist.

Mid size corps (hundreds of employees, but way under 1k) are the sweet spot in my opinion. Large enough to have some structure, small enough to not have too much red tape if you need to get stuff done. You can also do lateral moves easier, change specialties or maybe even get some team leading experience.

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#116

Post by datavirtue »

costcofries wrote: post #57

Is there any value in you learning how to effectively work in a place where things take weeks instead of days? If not, that's okay. Though do appreciate that as that 50 person company scales, it too will need to take a longer time to align all the moving pieces. Moving slow isn't inherently bad, it just might not be.. your thing.

Moving slow isn't bad? Try mentioning that at the next standup.

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#117

Post by trebligdivad »

Perfectly normal; a lot of big companies are broken - but... sometimes you can find an interesting/sane part of a big company; you could try and get yourself internally transferred to a sane part. I've seen whole teams from a startup move inside the big company away from the part that organised their purchase since they were so broken. Or just leave; the big company owes you nothing [or if it does at given specific dates, just hang in for those and plan your escape]

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#118

Post by rjzzleep »

_skel wrote: post #37

> So I reach out to the manager and ask what is going on. This is a simple task, I said. Why does it take an entire quarter for your team to deliver? He doesn't have an answer. Your simple task, which you think would only take a few days to implement, is probably one request in a long queue of requests that team is dealing with. That means they won't be able to start on it for a long time. That team probably set up t…

I mean sure there is "some" truth to it. But more likely than not the acquiring company has two conflicting priorities:

1. acquire startups/talent to improve certain things that the company is incompetent at

2. actively block efforts from the startup because a certain part of the company actually believes that they are doing things better themselves, i.e. ego

I advised a big US car maker on their autonomy and one part of the company actually took 8 months to acquire PC's to do machine learning with(which then ran into a supply shortage further delaying it) and 5 months to upload test data to s3. It's not that they weren't working on it. They had meetings every week.

You give them too much credit. Of course there is probably also that one guy actually implementing in the middle of the 20 people that just talk who's plate is completely full. But that doesn't stop those companies from hiring 20 PMs with their own agendas to manage that one guy.

If you really need the money keep working there. If not either force change it and get fired or run away.

Someone in Germany called it the 3 A's.

A - Akzeptieren -> accept

A - Aendern -> change

A - Abhauen -> flee

EDIT: in the time I was there half of the team of the acquihire they made quit and moved on to better opportunities, because the org itself took almost a year just figuring out how to get these people to migrate their docs from google docs to office 365

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#119

Post by TigeriusKirk »

fiachamp wrote: post #99
_skel wrote: post #37

> So I reach out to the manager and ask what is going on. This is a simple task, I said. Why does it take an entire quarter for your team to deliver? He doesn't have an answer. Your simple task, which you think would only take a few days to implement, is probably one request in a long queue of requests that team is dealing with. That means they won't be able to start on it for a long time. That team probably set up t…

The amount of people on HN nowadays that are okay with getting nothing useful done is striking. Startup guy, you don't have to accept being part of a bloated hierarchy that rewards politics more than good decision-making. You could check out at the corpo job and start prototyping your own startup ideas. Or join another early stage startup where your performance matters. I'll be starting one soon - let's keep in touch…

Yeah. All the explanations are a waste of words if OP isn't happy with the process. The process isn't going to improve. If it's not to your taste, bail as soon as your deal is complete (might be already).

Personally, I think we all win if the people who want to move fast are in situations where they can move fast.

Re: Ask HN: Startup acquired by a large company and it sucks. What to do?

#120

Post by zarkov99 »

fiachamp wrote: post #99
_skel wrote: post #37

> So I reach out to the manager and ask what is going on. This is a simple task, I said. Why does it take an entire quarter for your team to deliver? He doesn't have an answer. Your simple task, which you think would only take a few days to implement, is probably one request in a long queue of requests that team is dealing with. That means they won't be able to start on it for a long time. That team probably set up t…

The amount of people on HN nowadays that are okay with getting nothing useful done is striking. Startup guy, you don't have to accept being part of a bloated hierarchy that rewards politics more than good decision-making. You could check out at the corpo job and start prototyping your own startup ideas. Or join another early stage startup where your performance matters. I'll be starting one soon - let's keep in touch…

As someone who just transitioned from a small startup to a much larger organization I feel the pain of the OP, and I hate it, but I get the feeling that this is typical and maybe unavoidable as organizations scale. Is that not your experience? Seems like you either have scale or efficiency.
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