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Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

thinkgrowth.org

191–200 of 265 posts

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#191
post #181
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was skimming through the article when I read that line then I assumed the author might be someone important so started reading the rest of the article with more focus.

Shouldn't you care more about the topic and if you find it agreeable or even inspirational instead of judging it by the author's perceived importance?

Ideally yes, in reality you cannot process everything so you filter the information based on the author's importance.

e.g If you read some financial advice on a random blog you might ignore it but the same advice coming from Warren Buffett will be taken seriously.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#192
post #190
post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really legendary CEO's don't even give stock options to early employes. When Steve Jobs Refused To Give Early Apple Employees Stock, Steve Wozniak Offered Them $10 Million Of His http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-wozniak-gave-early-appl...

Your point? If you wished to imply that because Jobs did it - it's the way to go, you're committing a fallacy of "appealing to authority" [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

the point that strangely even being a douchebag and treating employees like crap he managed to achieve great perceived success and for some people success it's all that matters.

Amazon could also be another interesting example

Reminder Amazon treats its employees like shit

http://gizmodo.com/reminder-amazon-treats-its-employees-like...

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#193
The company I work for at the moment has two values/myths that have worked really well at preventing situations like this. Early on, just before I joined at around the 150 person stage, the employees self organized values. One of these was Daytime is Precious. Interestingly it was applied equally to the idea of don't waste time (meetings etc) and to the idea that everyone has a life outside of work. The second was the idea that teams are anonymous, and decide themselves what they work on.

In reality these are ignored at times when required. But they're so embedded in company culture that you need a pretty good reason to do so and more importantly most employees are comfortable challenging management when they do.

I'm not sure how to replicate this but letting employees set the company values once you get to a certain size is likely a good call.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#194
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take the unpopular position of supporting a small room of a few "higher ups" making decisions. This is exactly what you want: a small number of people with a lot of skin in the game making important decisions. Good leaders gather feedback and counter-arguments beforehand, but then make a firm decision, and it's diminishingly rare for that decision to please everyone. The people who are not pleased should still f…

a small number of people with a lot of skin in the game making important decisions The problem is exposure. Those people will capture all of the upside if they get it right, and their subordinates will take the downside when they don't.

Well, no: share price.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#195
post #193

The company I work for at the moment has two values/myths that have worked really well at preventing situations like this. Early on, just before I joined at around the 150 person stage, the employees self organized values. One of these was Daytime is Precious. Interestingly it was applied equally to the idea of don't waste time (meetings etc) and to the idea that everyone has a life outside of work. The second was th…

> teams are anonymous, and decide themselves what they work on.

Could you please elaborate how that worked technicall? Does that affect git log authorship metadata? What about discussions on company chat/maillist about the issues being worked on, are they also anonymous? Does this make tracking real contributions of individuals impossible?

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#196

This post rings eerily true. Recently had a company all-hands where the CEO said basically the exact same lines. The whole "if you don't love working here, then you should leave" bit made me cringe. Easy for you to say when you've got a significant equity share in the company. The saddest realization I've had working at companies is how power-hungry people are, how little respect the people in power often have for th…

I'll take the unpopular position of supporting a small room of a few "higher ups" making decisions. This is exactly what you want: a small number of people with a lot of skin in the game making important decisions. Good leaders gather feedback and counter-arguments beforehand, but then make a firm decision, and it's diminishingly rare for that decision to please everyone. The people who are not pleased should still f…

If anyone wants to be part of the decision making process, they really should strive to get in that room. And when they get there, they will appreciate the absence of noise from people who think their voices automatically matter. If a company doesn't have a way to gather important feedback from its workers, then that is a failure. But that does not equate to everyone needing to be in that room.

When I started out, my goal was to have a meeting every week and to include everyone. It was a waste of time. People would throw out ideas they had no intent to pursue, and when they were not talking would start fiddling with their phones.

You'd be surprised how many people don't value other people's time, or even other people's ideas. It's easy to imagine you could make a difference or be that difference, but if you truly believed you should have a say, then you should make it known, and either prove yourself, or find a job that comes with the satisfaction you desire. Like, maybe a more team oriented environment.

The truth is, especially at a large tech company, you are replaceable. No one is asking for your personal touch be it at a Foxconn assembly line or an engineer at Cisco. Unless of course, your job title includes "designer" or "architect" etc. But otherwise you're there to do the impersonal work you agreed to do for the impersonal money they're paying you. That's all a job is. You get more for better skills and more experience / less risk. All they are looking for is a guarantee that the work will get done.

This isn't to say you shouldn't have fun or that you shouldn't make the most of it. It's just saying that if fun or "most" entails being heard by execs or barking up the tree, then you will pay for it one way or the other; either with your emotional well being, or with lower pay due to greater overhead for being noisy and needy.

Managers are paid human sound barriers that permit lower quality hires for less pay. This is an important role, as are those being managed. But to think you can get past the manager who's very job is to silence you is the wrong approach. Don't raise your voice or kick harder. You need to become a manager. Either that or go work at a smaller company where the CEO sits across the room.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our CEO has flat out told us that it's incredibly hard for him to get honest feedback from anyone (except for maybe the board and investors), and another executive echoed this. Nobody wants to question the almighty CEO to his face. Nothing against the CEO. He's an extremely friendly and approachable person. Most people just fear questioning authority and power, and the CEO in a modern day corporation is revered simil…

It's not possible to implement some type of anonymous feedback system? My company sends out periodic anonymous surveys as an attempt to garner feedback from the employees. The only problem I see is if employees, for whatever reason, don't believe such a system is truly anonymous and thus refuse to give honest feedback. I don't see that being a common trend though. If so, it probably signals more serious problems betw…

it is possible, but most of the times it's not anonymous. I.e. after an anonymous survey for some ridiculous "company of the year" award (by a third party mind you..) it was identified that some women didn't vote the place as meritocratic or equal opportunities. They were dragged into a meeting room to "discuss" about their views. This served as a lesson to all these women and all of their colleagues to never trust "anonymous surveys" in the workplace, ever.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#198
post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a small number of people with a lot of skin in the game making important decisions The problem is exposure. Those people will capture all of the upside if they get it right, and their subordinates will take the downside when they don't.

Well, no: share price.

Not many at the ordinary-worker level have a meaningful equity participation or bonuses. 10% of your salary at most at most companies if an impossible set of conditions are met, or laid off when the company needs to save some money, versus executives who will pocket millions whatever happens.

Re: Why Good People Leave Large Tech Companies

#200
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll take the unpopular position of supporting a small room of a few "higher ups" making decisions. This is exactly what you want: a small number of people with a lot of skin in the game making important decisions. Good leaders gather feedback and counter-arguments beforehand, but then make a firm decision, and it's diminishingly rare for that decision to please everyone. The people who are not pleased should still f…

If anyone wants to be part of the decision making process, they really should strive to get in that room. And when they get there, they will appreciate the absence of noise from people who think their voices automatically matter. If a company doesn't have a way to gather important feedback from its workers, then that is a failure. But that does not equate to everyone needing to be in that room. When I started out, my…

> The truth is, especially at a large tech company, you are replaceable.

This will sound harsh to many, but I believe it's basically true. At large companies, the innovation has already happened; they found a market and are now mining it. Very few large companies can continue to innovate (Apple being the main example), but the rest just ride off into the sunset. Sometimes the market they're in evaporates, and they die, but usually they muddle along.

Venkatesh Rao[1] wrote a series of blog posts on this that are frightenly accurate and jive perfectly with my experience.

[1] https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

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