What’s sobering is even a prescient leader like Butterfield was snowed despite that clear evidence.
I tell everyone founder - acquisition is the death of everything you worked for. Acquisitions teams are sales teams with 0 follow on accountability, structure, or goals. They are quite literally there to tell you what you want to hear & get you to believe it’s true. With maybe the exception of Microsoft, it’s not.
Fascinating. We’re seeing the same thing. Seeing a few companies opt for Coda as a way to convert some sheets to processes. Here’s what we’ve done with it: https://supsync.com/squared-away/
Having worked in HR - you are trapped in the ATS system black hole. Never apply for a job cold. Always have an employee refer you in. You will 3x your chances (from 2% to 6%) with that one decision.
Employment isn’t by companies, it’s by teams.
Get your LinkedIn & Twitter game going.
I’ve been where you are. I made $50k more a year by making the decision to hire a career coach.
You’ve got a lot to offer. Giver yourself a real chance.
I’m not sure your 2nd point is that controversial. Many clear examples of companies manufacturing scarcity in order to create profits - light bulbs being an easy example.
This is fantastic. I’d love to chat with you about it. Super powerful to have intel on the tech stack. Might be a bigger opp for you in RevOps. I’m on Twitter @briansowards or your can find email in bio.
A semi-interesting read on a topic I often think about.
I’ll boil it down to “new systems generate new social systems, that become imitations of themselves, that then cannibalizes the initial system.”
The insight I see here is we need new social technology.
The “hands on” founder is back with Gen Z, along with verticalized ambitions. There were easy wins building on the institutional tech stack we've inherited, but today you are more likely to conform or fail if you launch a transformational innovation on that stack.
Instead, I see founders going to the source of each institution to create change. Cul de Sac in AZ going after that.
In the same way, we’re designing a vertical reinvention of the org as a guild. There’s institutions we’re build on for sure, but the security comes more from community than the enforcement of agreements by traditional institutions.
Cost centers: anything that improves your experience as an employee.
It’s smart to move out of it, but the fact that you have to in order to progress is a clear indicator why companies will perpetually undervalue talent - even in competitive markets.
But do you know how the business makes money (the actual processes)? Can anyone tell you how to add value in concrete terms?
Because in over a decade of consulting on technical leadership, Agile, lean and DevOps, the most consistent issue I’ve seen is that those questions are unanswerable for almost anyone in almost any company.
In the absence of a clear path to value creation, everyone optimizes locally for “best practices” because…
the root problem is almost all decisions have to be explained to people who know next to nothing about your area & you need to still sound rational.
The local maximum for that usually is “this is how _____ does it & it’s the new trend now.”
The glaring piece missing from this analysis is the psychology of the young men themselves.
Raising two young men myself, I’m blown away by how powerful cultivating intrinsic motivation is. My eldest just went from constant gaming/sleeping/hiding in his room to working a full-time job, launching a side hustle, and enrolling in classes.
Yes, my modeling & encouragement mattered. But the fulcrum was him accepting that living up to other people’s expectation in high school had left him tired, depressed, and lost.
The author has clearly identified that young man lack a goal worthy of their efforts.
He’s just completely ignored intrinsic motivation and the power of cultivating it.
I don’t think that’s an accident. I think our entire approach to young men as a society ignores the fundamental power of their interests.
Thanks for sharing. A book “The Psychology of Money” talks about this. How people handle money (successful or not) is very different depending on whether or not they experienced inflation as a child.
I tell everyone founder - acquisition is the death of everything you worked for. Acquisitions teams are sales teams with 0 follow on accountability, structure, or goals. They are quite literally there to tell you what you want to hear & get you to believe it’s true. With maybe the exception of Microsoft, it’s not.