You weren't meant to have a boss • Hacker News Board

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss

#111

Post by MachoCryBaby » Fri, Mar 21, 2008, 1:23 PM UTC

fleaflicker wrote: post #48

"Work for another company if you want to, but only for a small one..." My first job out of school was at IBM. This was invaluable not because I learned a lot but because I witnessed firsthand the bureaucratic inertia described in the article. When I left to launch a startup, I never looked back or second-guessed myself because I knew I wasn't missing anything.

I think that's crucial. I also worked for a huge software company for a couple of years before striking out on my own and the experience was worth it just to satisfy my curiosity about it, alone. The knowledge of what it is like and resulting lack of second guessing is valuable.

Lastly, I think this sort of testing, if you will, is worth doing in general. There were a couple of things I was really curious about trying as a freelancer. Each time, even when it didn't pan out was invaluable in terms of getting to know my own motivations more and refining what I liked, was good at and what I didn't. Sometimes you think you love something but you really don't know until you do it. You might like only parts of it but its worth doing it to learn that.

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss

#112

Post by coglethorpe » Fri, Mar 21, 2008, 1:53 PM UTC

>Credit card debt is a bad idea, period. It is a trap set by evil companies for the desperate and the foolish.

Best line of the whole article.

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss

#113

Post by meche » Fri, Mar 21, 2008, 2:02 PM UTC

When I talk about humans being meant or designed to live a certain way, I mean by evolution.

Evolution is the change of a species over time--it does not have a conciousness in order to "mean" to do things. The related reasoning in the article appears to infer the superiority of the last 10,000+ years of "hunter-gatherers" over the last few thousand years of larger organizations with managers for a specific purpose (building pyramids, aquaducts, etc.)--but these large public works projects are in fact the very hallmarks of the advancement of evolution. I'm not saying that we were "meant" to work in large organizations, but it is hard for your article to that conclusion using evolution as a reason. Indeed, the concept of evolution would seem to contradict your point. By definition, your ancient bands of hunter-gatherers were less evolved than we technologists are today, and today the large organizations (from government to google) reign supreme...therefore, large organizations are more "evolved"...

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss

#114

Post by ungood » Fri, Mar 21, 2008, 2:04 PM UTC

What a load of bullocks. Humans are a social species. They are supposed to work in groups, and any group needs leaders and followers - one is not more important than the other. Comparing the life of a "company man" to that of a lion in a cage is a straw man argument.

Some people, myself include, are more than happy to put in our 40 hours at our jobs (I happen to enjoy mine), and than get to go home and define ourselves in ways not related to our careers.

Your insistence that being a startup founder somehow makes you more human is arrogant and offensive.

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss

#115

Post by johnyzee » Fri, Mar 21, 2008, 2:19 PM UTC

And yet founders live almost exclusively on pizza...

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss

#116

Post by ww » Fri, Mar 21, 2008, 2:42 PM UTC

ken wrote: post #80

uuilly wrote: post #19

I used to work for a defense company that eventually got bought by a mega defense company. It was ~3000 people in various parts of the country and it was started by a man who deeply believed in the power of the entrepreneurial spirit. It had that free for all structure that PG says he'd never seen in a tech company. It was the wild west. We had different groups competing for the same government contracts. Managers an…

I've heard some Amazon employees say something similar (but maybe not as enthusiastically) about Amazon. One person described their structure to me as "like terrorist cells": it's understood (and encouraged) that 3 different teams are all trying to implement the same thing, in completely different languages and with completely different interfaces. They might not even know the others exist, until they ship. Hopefully…

Theres a view in economics that you 'can not play market' within the boundaries of the firm. That is to say if there is an overseeing committee that can end a project prematurely then you are not really having market forces operate 'within' the firm and are doomed to failure. There have been a couple of companies that have tried to do this. It is documented in the following book by Nicolai Foss:

http://www.amazon.com/Strategy-Economic-Organization-Knowled...

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss

#117

Post by scorpion032 » Fri, Mar 21, 2008, 2:45 PM UTC

Brilliant! For sometime now, I have been contemplating working for a big company or starting something myself. This is if not anything more, a trigger. Thanks for all that u write!

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss

#118

Post by byrneseyeview » Fri, Mar 21, 2008, 2:52 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #55

byrneseyeview wrote: post #35

Bridgewater Associates is a large (~400 employees, $36 billion assets) hedge fund that tries to avoid hierarchy: http://www.bwater.com/home/philosophy.aspx "Conflict in the pursuit of excellence is a terrific thing and is strongly encouraged, in fact demanded. There should be no (or as little as possible) hierarchy. Certainly there are organizational "superior-subordinate" relationships; however, every "subordinate"…

I've got a friend that works for Bridgewater, and it's amazing the extent they go to foster this independent culture. My friend can be kinda abrasive at times - not really arrogant, but more an "I'm right, damnit, and I'm going to be pedantic about it" personality. His first assignment was copy-editing some client reports. He came back with a long list of grammatical mistakes in the report, along with a lesson on pro…

That's excellent! How long has your friend been there (one issue with Bridgewater is that I have met many people who worked there, and very few who worked there for more than a year -- I think it's pretty jarring for most people).

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss

#119

Post by benmathes » Fri, Mar 21, 2008, 2:52 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #64

JoeProgrammer wrote: post #62

Unfortunately, student loans constrain the freedom of action of many recent graduates. They have to have that income to make the payments, which can be quite high. This of course favors upper middle class people as young company founders.

Yes, that is a real problem. I thought of mentioning this in the essay. The problem is the same as with visas: the government's definition of work is a job working for someone else. I hope eventually they'll wise up and change the rules about student loans, because the intent of the rules about repayment is not simply to get the money back as soon as possible, but to discourage people from merely slacking after colle…

> The problem is the same as with visas: the government's definition of work is a job working for someone else.

It's not quite that. At least some governmental oratory states that entrepreneurship is what drives the American economy. Verification of 'work' is just a hell of a lot easier if it's for a known company.

Re: You weren't meant to have a boss

#120

Post by madgreek65 » Fri, Mar 21, 2008, 2:53 PM UTC

Excellent article. I am a lifelong corporate IT guy who has a life long fantasy of working in a startup company. In my most recent job in which I have been on for 13 years, the IT shop consisted of about 30 people when I started. We were very entrepreneurial when I started and used to be rock stars who would crank out solutions for the business. Now we are 200 people moving at snail speed spending most of our time on compliance projects, infrastructure upgrades, and mindless enhancements to monolithic systems. It is hard to promote change because the status quo is rewarded. As I walk the halls, many people look like they are serving time. Management (which includes me) is always trying to foster innovation and new ideas. But only the newer employees participate. They have not assimilated yet. I am sure after they hit the wall a few times, they to will walk with slumped shoulders.

So your article hit home and was a great read. The next time I go to the zoo and look at the lion in the cage, I will realize that I am looking in the mirror.

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/eai/madgreek