Having bounced between the two, your story reminds me somewhat of the difference between for-profit and non-profit gigs. It's a relief to get away from people who expect there to be no job/life distinction and fall into a world of transactional relationships.
Also -- to throw more fuel on the fire, my brother worked in Silicon Alley back in the 90s boom, and his boss was a con artist with a phony resume who sexually harassed him in her spare time. Looking at Google, it seems like it took the company 11 months to go from getting a $17 million investment (on top of god knows how much else) to being sold for $4 million.
Re: Love the corporationsubstituteOctober 2 2009, 01:15:45 UTC
I'm not sure what you mean by "please pay attention." I didn't own or manage any of these companies, so there wasn't an opportunity for me to apply any of Mr. Graham's ideas. Nor do I understand why it's assumed that I read Graham at all. Perhaps this comment was intended for another site?
Why does a lemming need direction? Lemmings are very successful animals. They're inaccurately used as a metaphor for people engaged in self-destructive activity because of mindless imitation, but I'm not sure why that applies to someone who works well in a structured environment.
I'm interested in your ideas, but I'm not sure how it's helpful to imply that I have my head up my ass. Also, were I to have my head up my ass I couldn't be wearing any drawers, so your metaphor failed.
Re: Love the corporationsubstituteOctober 2 2009, 06:18:45 UTC
You're right that "blazing your own path" is impressive and one of life's great goals. For me that didn't mix well with making a living. I'm sure it's different if you're the owner or founder of one of these companies, too. As an employee I prefer to be on a train and not trapped in a clown car.
I understand that if you want your job and your self-actualization in one place, working for HugeCo is not going to satisfy. I get further up the Maslow scale doing things I can't get paid for, so I might as well just make money the "lemming" way.
Ok, so working for a company is better than working for a doomed startup, full of racists and incompetents. Really? That certainly is good advice, I am just not sure that anyone else needs that to be explicitlt pointed out. I can't wait for your next article, eating a donut is better than being punching in the face.
If the blow to the face is not too severe this may not be true. Facial tissue heals rapidly. A donut, however, has significant glycemic impact and may permanently damage your insulin response slightly. Combined with the sodium and saturated fat, it probably poses a worse long-term health risk than a moderate face-punch.
my favorite part of this post was the post. (a+ writing). but my second favorite part of this post is how several people took it super personally and came over here to white knight for startups out of a misplaced sense of low self-esteem. a++ entertainment.
I gotta say "hear, hear" to pretty much all of what you've said here, having been through several less extreme but equally dysfunctional (and disheartening) startup experiences over the last 10+ years. And I think there's an important side point that you're grazing but not fully illuminating--one that the startup defenders here miss, and one that I missed, too, until I found myself at a big company and had a similar experience to what you're describing: throughout the coming-of-age of this whole Internet thing, startups have had all the attention. A culture glorifying startupness (beanie hats, insane hours, etc.) has grown up with the Internet that basically equates the startup life/workstyle with coolness, and bigcorp culture with pure, stultifyingly boring evil. Now, I'm never satisfied with black-and-white perspectives on this kind of dichotomy; of course there are some perfectly sane startups and of course there are some totally awful huge corporations to work for. But it has felt to me like we've all been so busy being hip, young
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Also -- to throw more fuel on the fire, my brother worked in Silicon Alley back in the 90s boom, and his boss was a con artist with a phony resume who sexually harassed him in her spare time. Looking at Google, it seems like it took the company 11 months to go from getting a $17 million investment (on top of god knows how much else) to being sold for $4 million.
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Well, maybe the large company gives you the structure you need. Dot coms gave you freedom, but you need direction...like a lemming.
> Uncontrolled hiring
That's what Paul Graham has warned us about. Please read his pieces.
> in every case the outside money wrecked the company
Notwithstanding, don't blame the companies.
> Executives who came in
Again, that's what Paul Graham warned us about...please pay attention.
> the "two cofounders" startups were disasters
Microsoft, Sun, Yahoo, Google...go to bed, buddy...you need sleep.
> With great respect to personal friends who are running their own startups well,
Oh, so where is your head? I think you don't know...drop your drawers and find out.
g'nite,
-jwcorpening
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Why does a lemming need direction? Lemmings are very successful animals. They're inaccurately used as a metaphor for people engaged in self-destructive activity because of mindless imitation, but I'm not sure why that applies to someone who works well in a structured environment.
I'm interested in your ideas, but I'm not sure how it's helpful to imply that I have my head up my ass. Also, were I to have my head up my ass I couldn't be wearing any drawers, so your metaphor failed.
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I agree; If you haven't read Graham's writings, you wouldn't know to what I refer, and so I apologize.
> Why does a lemming need direction?
Lemmings don't need direction; rather, they just blindly follow others (which I guess is sort of a direction).
> works well in a structured environment
"imitation," that's the key word. Lemmings just follow and imitate, with no intrinsic direction. Blazing your own path, that's what's impressive.
-jwcorpening
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I understand that if you want your job and your self-actualization in one place, working for HugeCo is not going to satisfy. I get further up the Maslow scale doing things I can't get paid for, so I might as well just make money the "lemming" way.
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