I’m a small company guy - worked in startups for 30 years - and every time I’ve had to work with senior managers who come in after cutting their teeth in large companies I end up heading for the door.
The goals and motivations of large companies are really different to small companies. Large companies are all about risk management - at heart they are about revenue defence - while effective small companies should be all about attack. Being disruptive in a small company is the reason they exist; disruption in a large company is confronting and to be resisted. Going from one to the other is likely to be super stressful.
Unfortunately, as I’ve experienced, you do get these same problems in small companies run by big company people who think they know better. In my experience they just add weight. They don’t understand YAGNI.
IMO the discipline and skills needed to run a startup, especially pre revenue, are very different from those needed for an established company. It’s not that one is less disciplined than the other. But the size of a small company gives them benefits and room to move that a large company can’t touch. Small companies are already risky so a bit of extra risk doesn’t count for much. It’s to be embraced.
Currently working at a startup where a lot of recent hires have come from large organizations. All of them cite "bureaucracy and red tape" as reasons for joining a small company, but at least half of them have set about establishing exactly the sort of bureaucracy and red tape they claim to be fleeing.
I think that large company experience is valuable, but you probably don't want to be the startup they're cutting their teeth on. And if you're going to absorb those types of people, best to do it gradually. Make sure they don't comprise a majority of your workforce.
Thank you so much for writing this, you could easily be talking about my current company. I'm actually losing the battle against bureaucracy, and feeling pretty lost. Despite my long experience, the more I push back, the more I seem to reinforce the idea that I don't know what I'm doing - because I refuse to waste my time on bullshit. I'm the founder, and you'd think I'd have a say, but I don't. Yet I've been doing this for long enough to know that, at least, I'm less wrong than they think.
At least I'm not the only one to experience this! But I have no idea how to tackle it.
The goals and motivations of large companies are really different to small companies. Large companies are all about risk management - at heart they are about revenue defence - while effective small companies should be all about attack. Being disruptive in a small company is the reason they exist; disruption in a large company is confronting and to be resisted. Going from one to the other is likely to be super stressful.
Unfortunately, as I’ve experienced, you do get these same problems in small companies run by big company people who think they know better. In my experience they just add weight. They don’t understand YAGNI.
IMO the discipline and skills needed to run a startup, especially pre revenue, are very different from those needed for an established company. It’s not that one is less disciplined than the other. But the size of a small company gives them benefits and room to move that a large company can’t touch. Small companies are already risky so a bit of extra risk doesn’t count for much. It’s to be embraced.