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Successful companies go blind

ianreppel.org

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Re: Successful companies go blind

#31

Post by lucideer »

This is a generally great article with a lot of truths, but the title & overarching narrative throughout is a little off & feels like the author is trying to shoehorn one story into another.

In truth, the phenomenon they're describing (very accurately might I add) doesn't lead to the company "going blind" - the company never had eyes to begin with. The company was incepted in the cave & has no need to apoptose an organ that never needed to exist: neither in the company in abstract nor in its "engineers who have never worked elsewhere [...] well-meaning people who do not suspect anything is off. They have only ever known the cave"

The apoptosis the article describes doesn't really affect the company per se - its a process only new joiners undergo, part of their subsumption into The Company. Or they resist & ultimately leave, reinforcing the concentration of blindness.

---

Or, if they don't either submit to apoptosis or leave the company, they do a secret third thing, possibly the most common reaction: they silo. That can lead to some rare gems emerging from otherwise stagnant companies but mostly leads instead to team isolation & further stagnation.

Re: Successful companies go blind

#32

Post by returnInfinity »

elictronic wrote: post #12

Currently working at an older style defense company and this fits but I think momentum is a better reference. There are no financial incentives to risk on new process. Gatekeepers, siloing, bureaucracy, and risk aversion act to stop and slow. I have worked startups and early stage companies prior and used that experience to force developmental projects and gotten prototypes and patents through the resistance. My cowo…

Exactly, you need to be in the chosen group. The trusted group.

Re: Successful companies go blind

#33

Post by inigyou »

codeduck wrote: post #25
elictronic wrote: post #12

Currently working at an older style defense company and this fits but I think momentum is a better reference. There are no financial incentives to risk on new process. Gatekeepers, siloing, bureaucracy, and risk aversion act to stop and slow. I have worked startups and early stage companies prior and used that experience to force developmental projects and gotten prototypes and patents through the resistance. My cowo…

The system grows to stifle itself.

The system is not stifling the system. It is stifling innovation.

Re: Successful companies go blind

#34

Post by inigyou »

terminalbraid wrote: post #10

Can we stop the "drop how at the start of a title" auto editing? I suspect this was to fix some flood of problems long ago, but every time I encounter it it modifies the title away from true intent of the author.

It was intended to change "How I did X" to "I did X" I think but could we filter it to "How I" instead?

Re: Successful companies go blind

#35

Post by inigyou »

bsenftner wrote: post #11

Now apply this to entire industries and entire countries, and we begin to see what is happening to all of Western Culture.

You got downvoted for speaking the truth, or maybe because "Western culture" is such a vague term, but it works the way I read it.

Re: Successful companies go blind

#36

Post by gmfawcett »

inigyou wrote: post #35
bsenftner wrote: post #11

Now apply this to entire industries and entire countries, and we begin to see what is happening to all of Western Culture.

You got downvoted for speaking the truth, or maybe because "Western culture" is such a vague term, but it works the way I read it.

Or perhaps just because it's not accurate. Reducing any complex system down to a trivial projection is very unlikely to explain anything well.

Re: Successful companies go blind

#37

Post by jordand »

I'm currently in a 'successful company goes blind' situation myself. The company has grown massively and the situation we're stuck in is mainly driven by two types of 'internal' people:

a) People who've spent 10+ years with the company, and ended up in management/C-level positions - these are people that have: - Been promoted over and over from entry/mid positions across a chain of smaller easier-to-deliver projects - Have not upskilled or gained real experience on anything large/complex/challenging - Have a very safe, very cozy job, with no perspective or understanding on anything other than their past 10+ years.

b) Technical Leads/directors who've spent ~8+ years within the company, where: - They have a solid track record of success, a good reputation, and built up a lot of trust with the company...across a chain of smaller easier-to-deliver projects. - From their earned track record, they have very little oversight and accountability (management doesn't think they need it) - Limited/no interest in upskilling - Decision making is mostly on them...and the decisions made are orientated around themselves (!) - Limited/no interest in listening to others perspectives...even to the new highly-experienced management that's brought in to oversee them (why should they? They're the chosen! They're seen as perfect!)

You can see right between them how the blindness forms. Now, guess what happens when a client decides that a small project...is actually going to be a much, much bigger project, with real complexity, challenging external client people to work with, and a large number of external hires necessitated. Purely reactive decision making, several people that are a SPOF if they leave, no proactive planning or strategy now or before...and then things start breaking down...

Re: Successful companies go blind

#38

Post by kardianos »

elictronic wrote: post #12

Currently working at an older style defense company and this fits but I think momentum is a better reference. There are no financial incentives to risk on new process. Gatekeepers, siloing, bureaucracy, and risk aversion act to stop and slow. I have worked startups and early stage companies prior and used that experience to force developmental projects and gotten prototypes and patents through the resistance. My cowo…

You're correct. But have you been on the other side: something you know is not perfect, but someone convinces you to try something, you agree, it isn't great but it gets used... then they leave and you are stuck with something that is a pain clean up.

I understand it can suck: but what is lacking isn't your technical demonstration (unless it is truly ground breaking), but your demonstration to clean up your own mess and be responsible.

Re: Successful companies go blind

#39

Post by Nevermark »

light_triad wrote: post #23

A good example of "founder bias" where big companies are read as not innovating, when in fact their goal is to squeeze as much juice from their user base and strengthen their monopolistic position and pricing power. From the outside it looks like blindness and atrophy but from the inside it's the main bread and butter. The sighted engineer is also cave adapted, just to a different cave.

The problem is when practices are chosen, that improve things on one dimension, and harm things on another, without recognition of the long-term tradeoff being made.

Simply recognizing the tradeoff exists, is likely to result in wiser decisions with lower tradeoff costs, and greater opportunity expansion.

Re: Successful companies go blind

#40

Post by tbhimlying »

The only way to reach light speed is to become light itself.

As an object with mass accelerates closer to the speed of light, its relativistic mass effectively increases, requiring exponentially more energy for further acceleration.

To reach exactly the speed of light, an infinite amount of energy would be needed, which is physically impossible. The only way to actually reach the full potential of light speed is to convert all mass into pure energy, becoming light itself.

They aren't going blind at all, but becoming the image you see - moving so purely along a market vector that there's no discernible drag, no expenditure, no profit - massless and infinite - vertices in the greater economic hologram.

And if you can't see that, then you're not just blind but utterly rasterized.

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