261–270 of 618 posts
Eric - I've worked for NASA, ATT, IBM, HP, Amazon, and Google, not to mention a couple of startups that I started in between. None of them (except the startups, but they were brief) stayed true to their original mission. I haven't read your new book, but IMO, it's because the founders leave and the next leadership don't share the vision or values of the founders in the same way. After all, a company is a collaboratio…
Thanks for doing this, Eric. I'm about halfway through Incorruptible and loving it so far. Do you have any recommendations for entity formation infra that caters to mission driven companies? Something like Stripe Atlas that can form the more complex structures? Forming a PBC is becoming more standard but tthe other structures seem more esoteric (and expensive).
I got so frustrated that this is so difficult for people at the early stages to do with most law firms that I actually helped start a new law firm (called Virgil) to do it properly. Virgil is an AI-powered law firm, but it doesn't let the AI do the legal work for you. It actually hires and trains human lawyers to become AI-powered superhumans. It handles lots of the really unpleasant back-office crap that early-stage…
One other thing i've grappled with while reading the book is this:
Some of the internal issues you describe seem to come from companies growing too big. The Founders who lose control, weakening culture etc. The size of a company seems to correlate with so many issues (not all related to financial gravity).
I wonder how much pain can be avoided by just staying small (employee count).
Thanks again for the book(s). It feels very mission driven which perfect.
I've always find it an interesting dichotomy between their public image, retail worker reputation, and corporate reputation. The former two are fantastic. I live in Seattle metro area where they are headquartered, and the last is horrible.
I've had more than one recruiter tell me it's a classic, blue collar, "we've always done it this way" environment since many of their corporate people rose through the ranks in stores, not tech. As I believe Warren Buffet put it, "every company is a tech company these days," so this creates problems. I met someone at a party there about three years ago tell me a data migration went so poorly, they'll have to use two financial systems for at least ten years because the previous system was homegrown with ancient tech.
As an ENTJ, the later would drive me crazy, and I've declined when recruiters want to talk to me about such and such manager position at Costco.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comment is very astute. A structure is like a shell. It can only protect what is within. It does not cause what's within to be vital, healthy, or unhealthy. But if you think that the courage that Dario has regularly shown would be possible with a conventional "best practices" structure, I think you're kidding yourself.
> But if you think that the courage that Dario has regularly shown would be possible with a conventional "best practices" structure, I think you're kidding yourself. With respect to OP (who has a unique vantage from inside), I do agree with this on principle. When there are uncommon outcomes, there must be uncommon structure imho. A "good structure" is like oxygen, water, or peace: When it's well-maintained and well-…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your comment is very astute. A structure is like a shell. It can only protect what is within. It does not cause what's within to be vital, healthy, or unhealthy. But if you think that the courage that Dario has regularly shown would be possible with a conventional "best practices" structure, I think you're kidding yourself.
> But if you think that the courage that Dario has regularly shown would be possible with a conventional "best practices" structure, I think you're kidding yourself. With respect to OP (who has a unique vantage from inside), I do agree with this on principle. When there are uncommon outcomes, there must be uncommon structure imho. A "good structure" is like oxygen, water, or peace: When it's well-maintained and well-…
Do those questions need a foundation on which they stand to be answered? What is that foundation (are there relative foundations or are they by definition absolute?)?. Is there a moral standard that those handful of companies share? Similar to “success factors”, are there “success ethics” in your perspective?
What would be the elements of success ethics that others can learn from?
Eric - I've worked for NASA, ATT, IBM, HP, Amazon, and Google, not to mention a couple of startups that I started in between. None of them (except the startups, but they were brief) stayed true to their original mission. I haven't read your new book, but IMO, it's because the founders leave and the next leadership don't share the vision or values of the founders in the same way. After all, a company is a collaboratio…
One of the sad truths that the book tries to confront about the world we live in today: that most companies simply fail the test of succession. This does not have to be the reality that we live in. It is absolutely 100% possible to build organizations to resist gravity and even to transform organizations that have fallen into its clutches. The fact that this is rare tells you something about the incentive design and…
The founders and business models of Costco, Patagonia and Novo Nordisk are so radically different from so-called "tech startup" founders^1 that one must consider this in any analysis 1. Who lack a legitimate business model hence have resorted to "data collection from/about computer users, surveillance of computer users even when engaged in non-commercial activity and online advertising services" with generally free,…
The pawns don't want to work in the IT departments of those companies
They all want to be in Silicon Valley fantasy land
They worship obscene Silicon Valley wealth, they are beholden to venture capital firms and they want to build data centers all over the planet and fill Earth orbit with space garbage
The environment is an afterthought, computers and sci-fi fantasy are what is important to them
To each their own. But...
This is the opposite of the guy who founded Patagonia. For him the environment is forethought, he has spent his life outside, not in front of a computer^1
1. Yes, I am aware Patagonia has made some mistakes with maufacturing