There are instances of large companies that are able to balance this tradeoff of process vs. org-scale, at least for a while - before they have to "grow up".
One of my career's formative experiences was a decade ago when I left IBM (XIV) to work for a startup (Onavo) and couple of months later it was acquired by Facebook (Oct 2013). We were all at once excited of course but also somewhat worried. I personally left the old Big Blue and ended up at the new Big Blue. I wanted to work for a startup, goddamit!
At the time FB was relatively young, post-IPO, just around 5k people or so. "Move Fast And Break Things" was the mantra posted on every wall. "This journey 1% finished" was the sticker on every macbook. For a few years after I joined, the company really did still feel like a huge startup, or at its best days a collection of startups collaborating together in a beautiful big hot mess. There was very little process and a lot of efficiency. Or so we thought - turns out these processes were mostly hidden from us engineers, sheltered in our startup-like environment, left to our creativity and Hacker culture. It was happening behind the scenes, elsewhere - at HR, recruiting, finance, legal etc. That was actually pretty clever and allowed the creative, core side of the company to stay very nimble and, well, creative.
After some production incidents, an attitude adjustment was in order - "Move Fast And Break Things" transformed into "Move Fast With Stable Infra". That changed the way we built things, but it still kept us creative and fun.
With time though, and with external pressure, the process started seeping into the engineering org as well. For example, by the time I left in 2022, every product diff (PR, for us non-FB, Github users) had to have a privacy project attached to it and go through clearance by what I can only assume were lawyers. At the time I was working on software for a yet-to-be-released wearable hardware product, one not due for release for more than another year at least. No users would experience my code for at least a few more months (an eternity, for those familiar with FB's product lifecycle and release process).
Why did I have to deal with this crap? Well, money. Or more specifically, Government fines. FB (at that point Meta) could have chosen to do what it did in the past and hide the processes from its engineers. It chose the other direction, or at the very least surrendered to the process folks, sacrificing the creative people.
I still mourn that old culture. It didn't actually have to die.
There are instances of large companies that are able to balance this tradeoff of process vs. org-scale, at least for a while - before they have to "grow up".
One of my career's formative experiences was a decade ago when I left IBM (XIV) to work for a startup (Onavo) and couple of months later it was acquired by Facebook (Oct 2013). We were all at once excited of course but also somewhat worried. I personally left the old Big Blue and ended up at the new Big Blue. I wanted to work for a startup, goddamit!
At the time FB was relatively young, post-IPO, just around 5k people or so. "Move Fast And Break Things" was the mantra posted on every wall. "This journey 1% finished" was the sticker on every macbook. For a few years after I joined, the company really did still feel like a huge startup, or at its best days a collection of startups collaborating together in a beautiful big hot mess. There was very little process and a lot of efficiency. Or so we thought - turns out these processes were mostly hidden from us engineers, sheltered in our startup-like environment, left to our creativity and Hacker culture. It was happening behind the scenes, elsewhere - at HR, recruiting, finance, legal etc. That was actually pretty clever and allowed the creative, core side of the company to stay very nimble and, well, creative.
After some production incidents, an attitude adjustment was in order - "Move Fast And Break Things" transformed into "Move Fast With Stable Infra". That changed the way we built things, but it still kept us creative and fun.
With time though, and with external pressure, the process started seeping into the engineering org as well. For example, by the time I left in 2022, every product diff (PR, for us non-FB, Github users) had to have a privacy project attached to it and go through clearance by what I can only assume were lawyers. At the time I was working on software for a yet-to-be-released wearable hardware product, one not due for release for more than another year at least. No users would experience my code for at least a few more months (an eternity, for those familiar with FB's product lifecycle and release process).
Why did I have to deal with this crap? Well, money. Or more specifically, Government fines. FB (at that point Meta) could have chosen to do what it did in the past and hide the processes from its engineers. It chose the other direction, or at the very least surrendered to the process folks, sacrificing the creative people.
I still mourn that old culture. It didn't actually have to die.
Here's a 2 min audio version of "Stop glorifying startups" from Wednesday Wisdom converted using recast app.
https://app.letsrecast.ai/r/2bdf2f86-830f-4635-a1d4-9281b2607a76