Why Entrepreneurs Hate Working at Big Companies
trevorowens.tumblr.com
Why Entrepreneurs Hate Working at Big Companies
1–10 of 50 posts
Re: Why Entrepreneurs Hate Working at Big Companies
#2Best quote: It’s because they perceive the best case scenario as being a waste of time. They see a better opportunity outside the system.
Re: Why Entrepreneurs Hate Working at Big Companies
#3I think it's because they have a dream, and know that if they tried to accomplish that dream in a big corporation, they'd have to sell it to people at multiple levels of bureaucracy whose job description often includes killing dreams. Even if it was accepted, it would no longer be their dream, it would be the corporation's dream, under corporate control and ultimately susceptible to being morphed into something totally unrecognizable or killed at the corporate whim.
Entrepreneurs feel to their bones that their dreams are too great a part of themselves to so totally put under other people's control. And they don't believe anybody but themselves can truly understand their dream or pull it off.
Re: Why Entrepreneurs Hate Working at Big Companies
#4Working at big companies sucks for many reasons which have nothing to do with compensation. Many people might prefer to work in a less constraining environment regardless of the pay.
The author appears to have a strange definition of "entrepreneur" which is some kind of personality trait and not a business role. I suppose he must be using the word "entrepreneur" as shorthand for "person with high tolerance for the risks involved in starting a new business", i.e. a potential entrepreneur.
Re: Why Entrepreneurs Hate Working at Big Companies
#5Enterprise companies are built in a way that slows the process of getting shit done to an absolute crawl (red tape, politics, approvals, process and god-knows-what other nonsense that somebody in a position of authority has decided they're going to throw at you that afternoon), and that kind of environment is simply noxious to the kind of person that has the audacity to think they can start from nothing and build a company that employs hundred(s) and pulls in millions in just a few years.
It really is that simple. You can even find some small companies that entrepreneurs wouldn't last a second in, because they have this same mindset.
The point at any company where getting things done becomes less important than making sure people (and by induction, the company) follow orders or don't screw up, is the point at which entrepreneurial minded folks can no longer thrive at said company.
Re: Why Entrepreneurs Hate Working at Big Companies
#6As someone in a 'big company', I'm often frustrated (although not surprise) that entrepreneurs seem to see this is a binary problem.
This piece did touch on the real issue startup founders have with big companies - but only touched on it.
The issue is not compensation, the issue is an inability to understand how to traverse the system in order to execute and achieve what you want (and that can include 10x returns).
This ability is about understanding how to identify the problems/opportunities within a business that need to be addressed that nobody is attending to. This ability has nothing to do with office politics.
I've seen several people who have managed this. In fact I've seen 5x more people achieve amazing things in big organisations than I have seen entrepreneurs truly succeed. People within big organisations can also make it a non-binary choice - working with and often working on companies outside their 'big company' (I spend ~1 day a week working/advising some amazing startups as part of my job).
The inability to execute in a big company may not simply be due to oversight by entrepreneurs - it may be that the type of person that is successful at one cannot be successful at the other. But I don't believe that's true all of the time, and I find it shortsighted that so many successful entrepreneurs seem to see it as the truth.
Re: Why Entrepreneurs Hate Working at Big Companies
#7It is that simple : if I really trust my idea to be so good, why waste my time with a system that will at best not fight against my idea, and will not let me reap the full benefits of it? If I success, I'd rather keep everything (or most of it!) for myself!
There is a very small subset of problems, where, needing some very specific resources for my project, it is more logical to seek them from within an existing corporation, ie joining it, than from myself or the market.
I could live with the idea of japanese-style corporation, where loyalty goes both ways. It would be logical then to accept the idea of sharing in a system where others will share with you. Unless you have some serious deadweight, sharing would reduce the variance of your profits, but not the mean.
But if employees are resources to be used and discarded, companies are likewise resources to be used and discarded.
Basically, if the social contract is uphold, it is logical to share with others, knowing they will too share with you.
For a game theory analogy, when one breaks one's word, cooperation is no longer the best strategy, but defection.
The rise of entrepreneurship may have some link with the end of the traditional corporation, where one had a job until retirement, put a real effort in it, and was appropriately compensated.
Re: Why Entrepreneurs Hate Working at Big Companies
#8The word "entrepreneur" is getting used as a blanket term way too much to the point that anyone with an idea, CRUD app or working at a startup is an "entrepreneur."
Re: Why Entrepreneurs Hate Working at Big Companies
#9The problem with a lot of bigger companies is instead of nurturing and encouraging their workers to think outside of the box, they keep them as sterile as possible through contract clauses that prohibit their employees from working on any idea that is even remotely close to the companies particular niche (some even prevent you from personal projects full-stop) and non-compete agreements when they leave preventing them from finally being able to chase their entrepreneurial dreams.
Larger companies only innovate when their competitors do, they have obligations to meet (stockholders, customers, management executives) and doing anything different or trying anything new is a risk that could jeopardise profits of a company. Entrepreneurs who start out with nothing really don't have as much to lose as a company does, two different paths and ways of thinking.
Re: Why Entrepreneurs Hate Working at Big Companies
#10It is that simple : if I really trust my idea to be so good, why waste my time with a system that will at best not fight against my idea, and will not let me reap the full benefits of it? If I success, I'd rather keep everything (or most of it!) for myself! There is a very small subset of problems, where, needing some very specific resources for my project, it is more logical to seek them from within an existing corp…
>I could live with the idea of japanese-style corporation, where loyalty goes both ways. It would be logical then to accept the idea of sharing in a system where others will share with you.
IMO there are very few companies even in Japan who are truly like this anymore.