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Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

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Re: Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

#151

Post by omnisci »

cwilson wrote: post #79

The only way this "strategy" works is if a few things are already happening: 1. Communication is already really good 2. You have a basic plan in place, milestones laid out, and because of #1 being good you're ready to handle anything that doesn't go to plan (because things definitely won't) 3. If you have a plan in place you better have discovered some hint of product-market-fit (figured out who your customers are, w…

Agreed, there is nothing wrong with GSD as long as it's organized. I see this in science all the time, "I'm too busy to show you how to do something, just GSD!". That ends up meaning: 1. GSD 2. Do it again, it wasn't done right 3. Do it again, because it still wasn't done right (repeat 2 & 3 a few times over) 4. .... 5. Profit! This would be more effective if they followed what you posted, then said "GSD". Communication, planning and proper support are critical and without them, you aren't getting shit done, you are getting SHIT done (and wasting time). Plan quickly, train quickly and throughly, then get shit done effectively. GSDE would be a better mantra.

Re: Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

#155

Post by nsxwolf »

nostrademons wrote: post #104
AsymetricCom wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That's life" what a load... no, that's a corporate job which doesn't give a shit about you. It's not really life. The only reason people put up with it is because they're told "that's life" or "that's just how it is." when that's meaningless bullshit.

Why would you expect a corporate job to give a shit about you? It's not a person (regardless of what the Supreme Court says...), it doesn't have feelings. Your parents love you unconditionally. If you want anyone else to care about you, you have to make it happen through your actions.

I've worked for corporations that treated me well.

Re: Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

#156

Post by jamra »

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #71
jaegerpicker wrote: post #6

Dear God this was my life at a past employer. The biggest issue is that Get Shit Done usually turns to Get Shit Done exactly how I want even though I won't tell you what it is because I'm "Getting Shit Done!". I know better now. If I see that at an interview now, I'll run, not walk, run away. People bitch about how hard it is to find good developers and yet hire talented developers but put them in shitty positions. T…

> People bitch about how hard it is to find good developers and yet hire talented developers but put them in shitty positions. Notwithstanding the fact that the GSD mentality is often nonsense that comes from folks who don't know what they're doing, I would make the point that a lot of software jobs are "shitty" in the context of what many expect to find when they decide to become a developer. And that's life. Even a…

I'm not sure if performing mundane tasks is the same thing he's talking about. When you are prevented from doing your tasks because of a lack of support by your company and a lack of communication under the guise of "Getting things done", you are given accountability without responsibility i.e. You are punished for failure but not given the tools to make yourself succeed.

Re: Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

#157

Post by nostrademons »

nsxwolf wrote: post #155
nostrademons wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you expect a corporate job to give a shit about you? It's not a person (regardless of what the Supreme Court says...), it doesn't have feelings. Your parents love you unconditionally. If you want anyone else to care about you, you have to make it happen through your actions.

I've worked for corporations that treated me well.

I have too. In those cases, I treated the corporation well as well. Hence the "make it happen".

It's a two-way street, and when you're a faceless unknown dealing with a large entity, you usually have to make the first move.

Re: Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

#158

Post by prostoalex »

xux wrote: post #149
prostoalex wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> users who need them the most are also the ones least likely to know they need them Why? Do people with least technical knowledge just happen to build Wordpress-based sites attracting billions of eyeballs?

No, but they're the most vulnerable when a random article on their site gets attention (like this HN post).

On one end of the spectrum, you have non-technical people going for wordpress.com accounts that are hosted by Automattic. On the other hand you have fairly technical high-traffic users like New York Times or CNet hiring either their own technical staff (or, once again, outsourcing that to Automattic).

The target market of "people technical enough to download, roll out and host their own version of Wordpress, but not technical enough to find and roll out a plugin" is fairly small.

They could probably package WP-Cache with a default distribution of WordPress, but since that requires allowing write permissions on some directories, I suspect they're erring on the side of security.

Re: Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

#159

Post by perlpimp »

freshhawk wrote: post #133

In my experience GSD is just an excuse to avoid the organization and planning work that's not particularly interesting compared to banging out some code. I've seen a lot of startups just failing utterly because their primary philosophy is this one, and it tells them that it's ok to skip the hard/boring parts of your duties. On the plus side those who are thinking through their experiments and still failing fast but i…

Last company I worked at, we were doing planning for 2 years and have yet to ship a product. There is something to be said for GSD, but only for startups in teams of under 10. Why? - because shipping a product gives you something to look forward to, live product is something you can brag about show and change the world with. It is better to ship than not to ship. If you can't do it in 2 months - cut features out, etc etc.

If you have razor sharp focus and most people are apt in their roles and know what to do without looking up to a central person - thats called teamwork. However when you get to point when you start getting less focused and start looking for a new target, things got to get reorganized, thats when GSD is useless. When realigning troops you got to give some wiggle room instead of blindingly forging ahead, maybe off the cliff. When you hire more people - grow beyond original team - GSD can be a bit hard to deal with and frankly destructive on the whole to the growth of a company.

It is never easy.

my 2c.

Re: Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

#160

Post by [deleted] »

api wrote: post #121
brown9-2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was there seriously no one there that appreciated the AWS cost savings?

Apparently the fact that I had "rewritten something for performance" was viewed as an inherently bad thing to do regardless of the rationale or benefit. That's because some smart guy once said it was "the root of all evil," and everyone believes smart guys who are quoted a lot. I really have a pet peeve about cargo cult thinking in general. Concepts and ideas have context . To me it's a sure sign that I'm dealing wit…

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