this is surprising to hear - thanks for sharing! i still can’t help but wonder if there are some perceptive differences at play here versus something learned.
> “We are committed to operating like the world’s largest startup, and … that means removing layers.”
I learned a long time ago that behaving like a startup is not a good thing, and I've specifically oriented my career towards working at companies that don't even want to pretend to imitate startup culture. I'm very happy in enterprise-land.
You set the expectation that you can deliver at the pace of a lean startup, but every step of the way you are slowed down by a process or internal dependency that is operating like a fortune 100 company.
Large companies should just fund startups and acquire them when the product has shipped than try to create a culture where teams are expected to operate a speedboat that is towed by an oceanliner.
> Large companies should just fund startups and acquire them when the product has shipped
I mean, that's basically what big tech has been doing for the left 15 years., not then people get upset that "Foo Corp doesn't innovate, it only acquires".
Kinda. The sweet spot is working at a "mid-cap" company. The company is growing and you have resources and freedom to do things, but not so big that you are in a bureaucratic nightmare.
I tell people that the best size of company to work at is one that's just barely big enough to have an HR department.
Do we have any write ups or post mortems from WhatsApp employees prior to the acquisition and the massive buy out?
I want to (artificially perhaps) peg my projects to a smaller cohort of employees if it means the stress to them is worth it if they have the autonomy to ship stuff on their own accord, for a general feeling of having a successful and useful career.
It is especially not a good thing when you need to provide reliable services, coordinate across multiple business units, retain talent not chasing an equity payday, and protect your moat.
Finding out that one of the world's largest economic forces aspires to burn out their workforce and spend more time shooting from the hip is depressing.
Sure but overtime in enterprise is paid. In a startup you might get some worthless equity.
Also, in startups these things still happen more often, the culture normalizes unpaid overtime, unused PTO, etc. E.g.:
> While overtime is a reality in both startups and large corporations, the difference lies in the motivation behind it. In startups, work goes beyond traditional hours, not out of obligation, but from a genuine passion and commitment to achieving shared goals.
And yet, millions of people work 40 hour weeks and take a couple vacations per year while working in razor-thin margin industries like grocery stores and low margin restaurants, manufacturing, agriculture, construction, retail, trucking and services ranging from hair stylists to accounting.
Sane working hours and vacation time should be taken as a given in the modern economy. Unusually long work hours should be reserved for unusually highly paid professions like investment banking and surgeons.
In the US, that might be true if you don't have kids, and/or don't aim to buy a home in a major metro. Otherwise, a lot of those people are going to be working multiple jobs, or relying on a higher earning spouse. Especially retail and restaurant workers. Most won't even get subsidized health insurance from their employer, and if they do, they are not going to be able to afford the deductibles with their income from one 40 hour per week job.
> IIRC demoscene is already recognized as UNESCO heritage in Finland and Germany, what are we going to do, go down the list of every country that ever produced more than a few demos?
Potentially, yes. Take a look at the following list and you'll see, for example, that 24 countries are listed for falconry.
H.264 may allow 2160p video, but the 4K UHD standard is more than just 2160p. For example, HDR is absolutely critical to 4K, and the only way to do that in H.264 is to use Hi10P which isn't supported by most devices.
In fact, I'd say HDR is more important than 2160p resolution in that I'd rather watch 1080p HDR video than 2160p SDR video.
KWord is a thing, and the only reason it's not still under active development is because enthusiasm for development dried up after the acrimonious KOffice/Calligra split. In fact, it was the only part of the KOffice suite that was allowed to keep its name after the split.
And there's also AbiWord, which is still under active development.
Or speaking of which, all the gazillion office suites with Office in the name.
KWord and AbiWord don't use "Word" as a standalone, well, word. They're clearly not Word. You're not going to confuse them, and that's the point.
And "office" became the term for an office suite, the way "calendar" and "contacts" and "word processor" are just descriptive terms too.
But "Docs" and "Word" have a clear, obvious distinctiveness that "office" and "calendar" don't. "Word" and "Docs" don't inherently mean "word processor". Heck, OpenDocs.com is for legal forms, not word processing.
I really don't know what you're arguing. Go ahead, start a word processor named just "[Company name] Word" with the space and get sued by Microsoft and lose. You don't really think you'll win, do you? This is not a controversial or blurry area of trademark law.
Sony are giving up on the compact flagship 5 series because "People are no longer interested in compact phones and would rather go for a large one if it offers the same benefits". And unfortunately the specs of the Xperia 10 just doesn't cut it for me. :(
Funny enough I found some old pants that still fit, ~20y old, and those pockets does not fit a modern phone. But I remember my Nokia 6210 being just the right size for them.
Sounds about right. I remember around 15 years ago a family member got a new phone and I thought it was laughably big. Probably smaller than what I'm currently using in retrospect.
My favorite video game company is a little Japanese outfit called Nihon Falcom. They've been around since 1981, have about 65 employees, release exactly one new game a year, and if you've played any of their games, you can tell they're all made on absolutely shoestring budgets. They have also never posted a loss and have an absolutely bonkers amount of cash on hand (enough to keep the company going for several years on their current budget IIRC).
They also make the best story-driven RPGs I've played in my life. And they specifically went the story-driven route because it's cheaper to hire good writers than it is to wow people with AAA graphics or a giant open world or whatever.
I think "breakdown" is the wrong word: he's always been this way. I think he may have Borderline Personality Disorder. The behavior Matt is engaging in here is called "emotional dysregulation", which is characteristic of BPD, and he has a long history of doing it whenever he faces even the slightest criticism.
In 2010, he attempted to get Ben Cook fired from his day job for writing an essay criticizing his dual role as head of both Automattic and the Wordpress Foundation. Over the last few years, he has waged a disproportionate war against queer users on Tumblr for lightly criticizing his leadership.
I have had dental abscesses in the past that made my mouth taste like I was in a room full of cannabis smoke.
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