
Why companies lose their best innovators (2019) - hhs
https://www.forbes.com/sites/kmehta/2019/07/11/why-companies-lose-their-best-innovators/#72eade2032e1
======
benjohnson1707
Most companies seem to screw it up once they leave the startup stage and enter
the growth stage. Incentives schemes aren't designed to 'reward' failure, but
zero risk-taking.

It seems to be that simple: If you WANT innovation, you'll get innovation.

What most people (at least those willing to climb the corporate ladder) want
however is a career. And within a corporate incentive structure, career and
failure don't go well together. Creating value out of nothing is way harder
than simply not screwing up existing value. So it's obvious what you're gonna
get.

Eventually, there is no such thing as 'corporate innovation'. There could be a
thing called 'corporate sponsored innovation garage', or something similar. At
least for new business development from the ground up.

The promising way to pull that off it seems is a blend of YC startup school
tutoring, venture capital, [Google] X, the innovation culture of Tesla/SpaceX
and access to cutting edge technology/people - baked into the right incentive
structure.

IF innovation was repeatable, I'd bet on such a vehicle and allocate resources
there.

~~~
Konohamaru
> Creating value out of nothing is way harder than simply not screwing up
> existing value.

I disagree. Not screwing up existing value is way harder than simply creating
value out of nothing.

~~~
mdorazio
This is an extremely odd position to take. The failure rate of startups vs.
large companies alone is enough data to disprove it.

~~~
Nbox9
Large companies have more value than startups, so it takes more time to lose
that value. Large companies also have expertise in value preservation and
value creation. Startups usually only have expertise in value creation.

I’m not sure I 100% agree with the statement, but it’s an interesting
perspective to try from time to time.

------
roenxi
Corporations aren't really meant to be all that innovative. In practice
corporations are designed to be extremely disposable. They can be unwound up
on failure and spun up relatively easily. There isn't a rule saying that these
companies can't innovate, but why should Cisco even be trying to write a
teleconference client? There is no fault to be found that they didn't
capitalise on what became Zoom.

Best of breed corporations are often characterised by a focus on key ideas and
their variations - look at Apple, pretty much all their products are variants
of an iPad at different sizes and different target audiences. Picking some
other global Fortune 500s: Walmart and Amazon, profound dedication to
logistics. DuPont knows chemistry, Boeing mastered turbulence and propulsion.
A couple of big extractors that know how to claim resources from the natural
world. These companies are all very innovative, but also profoundly focused.
They will really struggle to cope with innovations that aren't in the area of
their strategic edge.

It isn't a loss to anyone if the next trillion-dollar idea spins out as a new
company instead of growing within an existing major. If someone has great
ideas, we should invest in the person not in their employer. And they should
stand to profit from their own success.

~~~
11thEarlOfMar
I've given this some thought and developed a notion that I hope to actually
implement. Critique welcome.

Large companies can identify innovators, or at least learn to do so. In some
cases, it will be as obvious as the founders of companies they've acquired. In
other cases, it may be simply polling the engineering and product management
ranks and tracking down those who are considered innovative by their peers.
Or, you may even make it egalitarian and offer developers a 'year of
invention' after some number of years at the company.

One point I think is key is to create an environment that is conducive to
innovation. Relaxed administrative obligations, flat organization structure
and a budget. Nominal oversight and justification requirements. Then, a simple
guideline: What is developed needs to be on a path to becoming a product or
service the company could offer.

Innovators could be supported with HR for finding contractors or consultants
to work with, purchasing for buying components or equipment, marketing and
business development persons could be assigned to the program to help
innovators with business plans, cost and pricing analysis, market research.
The innovation organization could be placed in a work space with dedicated
space for their project, and a common space to meet and collaborate with other
innovators.

Rewards for successful products could simply be additional stock grants and
recognition, or perhaps simply another tour of innovation.

The risks would be if the program were abused and budget misspent, or the
innovator simply didn't do any real work, or went off the rails with their
projects. Also, development projects could have many budget sizes from
virtually nothing to multiple millions. Perhaps the business development
partner could help with proposals to request additional budget, once
prototypes were far enough along to be compelling.

A multi-billion corporation could easily allocate a few million to this type
of environment and keep a dozen or so innovators busy. You'd only need one
success every so often to make it worthwhile.

~~~
MattGaiser
Also, time. A year should be a year, not two week periods with endless "how's
it going?" and check in meetings where you need something to present.

~~~
kochthesecond
Ugh.. This hits too close to home.

------
dwd
It really comes down to personality.

Highly creative people generally rank low on conscientiousness. Organisations
as they grow need ALL their employees to be conscientious: organised,
punctual, goal-oriented, accountable - to not just to control outcomes but
maintain cohesiveness.

Organisation culture stifles those type of people.

For an organisation to keep their innovators they need to be siloed away in an
autonomous 'Skunk Works' where they can be free from the bureaucracy required
to run a company.

~~~
wolfgke
> Highly creative people generally rank low on conscientiousness.

Are you sure about that? I would rather assume that highly creative people
often rank low on "tolerating bullshit" instead of having a low
conscientiousness.

~~~
dwd
Conscientiousness can be broken down further into 5 factors: two of which
correlate with openness to experience: industriousness and achievement.
Creatives tend to be low on the other three: order, dutifulness, and
deliberation.

Probably safe to say dealing with other people's bullshit gets in the way of
industriousness and achievement and leads to low agreeableness. ;)

~~~
henriquemaia
Generalizations like those need solid data to back them up. As it stands, it's
just pushing a pseudo-psychological narrative.

~~~
bmn__
Explanation for your downvotes: GP's description is not a generalisation or
pseudo-psychological, but reflects the current standard model of personality
in psychology. [http://enwp.org/OCEAN_model](http://enwp.org/OCEAN_model)

~~~
henriquemaia
Thanks for the link. Actually, I think the downvotes were somewhat deserved. I
wasn't careful enough to set the proper tone of my critique.

In any case, I just wanted to point out here on HN we value those who back up
their claims with good data.

You did this. So, thanks.

~~~
dwd
You may also have been thinking of Myers-Briggs which is pseudo-scientific
nonsense and quite worthless given the ease it can be gamed when answering the
questions.

------
MattGaiser
I am the kind of person to submit 30 ideas to internal innovation challenges.
I was an innovation intern for a bank. I have won many innovation awards from
competitions they hosted to find ideas.

How many of those ideas got out of the page/prototype stage? 0.

Because it seems like the important thing for many is to seem innovative.
After that part has been done, interest disappears.

Everyone would rather you excite them with a new idea. So much of this
"innovation" stuff is about media and being trendy.

~~~
iandinwoodie
Waterproof hairdryer. You can dry your hair in the shower while you get it
wet.

~~~
MattGaiser
Shall we?

[http://www.ycombinator.com/apply/](http://www.ycombinator.com/apply/)

------
gkanai
Another great example of an innovator who was not rewarded is Shuji Nakamura,
who invented the blue LED, which led to a lot of other successful products
including the white LED and the bluray disc platform. Nakamura was not
rewarded by his company, went on to win a Nobel prize with collaborators from
his company. Nakamura left the firm, sued the firm and basically walked away
with nothing. He's now an academic at an American university.

------
kumarvvr
There is a reason companies don't encourage internal innovation.

It has nothing to do with managers, HR, or what not.

Say you have 100 innovators in your company. Everyone comes to you with an
idea, as an SVP or a Director, can you agree to all of them? You obviously
pick and choose. And how can anyone say a new product / service by a company
is not the result of an internal innovator?

Alternatively, in the safe environment of a company, as in the innovator is
getting capital and resources from the company finances, I think it is more
likely that people are more free to give out ideas, even crappy ones. It's
easy for a good idea to get lost in the noise.

Ultimately, what is the solution to this? I guess you have to fundamentally
change the structure of companies itself.

In the given example, if Cisco were to transfer the innovator to another
division, give him some money, on the same terms and conditions as a VC,
perhaps it would have borne fruit.

Essentially, it's easy to see companies, once a certain size, are effectively
hard wired to move at a slow, glacial pace and focus on sustainability, rather
than fast and fail innovation.

~~~
MattGaiser
> Everyone comes to you with an idea

Is this actually happening? Are ideas being pitched at a high rate? As at
every company I know of that has held an internal innovation competition,
interest is quite low.

~~~
sk5t
> internal innovation competition

As in, an opportunity to give away good ideas for no cash and no equity?

~~~
MattGaiser
They usually have cash prizes, or at least electronics.

~~~
kumarvvr
In a lot of big companies, there is always a huge distrust in the management.

Seems to be true even cases like Google and Microsoft.

~~~
MattGaiser
That is having too many expectations. You should go into this expecting them
to give you a small bonus. That is it. You don't have some idea you value at
under $1000?

------
PaulHoule
Zoom is a particularly good example because it shows the same cycle the "chat"
space has been stuck in since 1993 or so.

For a while IRC was cool, then it was CUSeeMe, then there was Paltalk, and
ICQ, and AIM, and Microsoft Messenger and Skype and Lync and Skype for
Business and Google Talk and Facebook Messenger, and...

If you look at them closely you can find some improvement (e.g. Zoom has a
server that makes the "Hollywood Squares" view of all the participants) but if
you look at them broadly they don't seem to have gotten better over time,
they've just locked people in, stagnated, then something new comes along. It's
hard to see how Facebook Messenger is different from AIM except for what it is
locked in to.

If the EU really wanted to show some leadership it would put an outright ban
on proprietary chat programs and force them all to use open protocols. Think
of it as a part of a "computer user's bill of rights". Every time somebody
wants me to download some new chat app I want to throw a hammer through a
screen like that Apple 1984 ad.

------
roland35
This is a tough problem for companies. At my last job there was an "advanced
concepts" group which had a lot of freedom and latitude, but they had a poor
reputation for not really producing anything useful. The few things they did
produce had to basically be redone since the quality of engineering wasn't
ready for production.

I'm not sure how to fix that, since lack of freedom wasn't the problem! It
probably is just making sure that the right people are leading.

I also don't know how to reduce other engineering groups more focused on
practical projects resenting the innovation group working on more fun, low
stress projects. That is a hard political problem.

~~~
mensetmanusman
This is a ying and yang issue. For every advanced concepts team, you need a
non-techy business and marketing team to pull ideas out to the world.

------
emerged
as an innovator, I stayed at a company which was extremely resistant to
innovation because nobody had any idea how few hours I was working for a
decade. So while they resisted all my innovations for that decade, I was
spending most of my time doing everything I wanted to outside of work.

~~~
NegativeLatency
Can you elaborate?

~~~
emerged
I worked remotely, very few hours per day, and nobody knew how few hours I
worked because I was still the person they gave all the hard problems to and
ripped through all my tasks quickly.

But any innovations put forward were rejected through political games played
by non remote employees. On some meta level I was fine with that because while
they saw those as petty wins I was living a life of freedom working less than
half the day.

Since then I realized the same level of freedom could be had with people who
care to leverage innovation instead of striving to fight it. Life was very
good, now it's great.

~~~
hackerfromthefu
Hi thanks for your post.

It jumped right out at me and I had to login and reply right away - because my
experience is the same as yours, verbatim, for the first part!

I'm presently as you mentioned: fully remote, fixing the hard problems so they
keep me well rewarded, doing it part time and enjoying the freedom, the org is
political and non remote with culture issues stifling true innovation .. its
striking in its similarity I feel like we could be work twins!

I would love to talk to you about the next level, what it is for you and also
how you got there. If I can, how can I get in touch with you?

------
starky
The company I work for drives me nuts with this. We do tons of research and
innovation on the software side of things. But because hardware takes longer
we almost never do any research or try out anything risky because we are
always the critical path on the schedule.

The funny thing is, whenever we have hackathons, hardware teams always end up
winning because someone has been sitting on a cool idea that they would never
have the time to investigate during their normal job duties.

We have definitely lost a couple of our good people because of this attitude.

------
softwaredoug
Mature companies can become vehicles for protecting management/investor
wealth. This forces them to act far too conservative. Management starts to see
it like we might see our mortgage or savings.

As such, they want to build a “fortress” to protect the current business
model. Innovation- even internal innovation - can upset the apple cart.

Making things worse, executives running a mature company are often very
operations oriented. They’re not the same mentality of a founder (who are
conversely often terrible at streamling operations!).

------
lnsru
Big companies have their own roadmaps, managers have their own agendas. There
is no resources for innovative weirdos. Especially in the world ruled by
bookkeepers. In my experience not much technical guys make it into middle
management. And you can explain 100 times simple technical improvement in the
simplest words to a bookkeeper. He will not get it!!! Instead engineers will
play another session of design thinking to check innovation box on somebody’s
checklist.

------
graphicsRat
This is exactly what happened to Lightwave (a revolutionary 3D animation
software). Management refused to allow the engineers to address pressing
concerns so the chief engineer left to create another company whose products
modo has now eclipsed Lightwave
[https://youtu.be/DiOX-D2B8LE](https://youtu.be/DiOX-D2B8LE)

~~~
friendlybus
Same thing is happening to modo.

~~~
graphicsRat
Really? So soon? Can you be more explicit?

------
tjpnz
If you have an idea of sufficient merit what would incentivise you to give it
up to your employer versus quitting and trying to do it yourself? I realise
that startups aren't for everyone but the alternative seems far less appealing
and doesn't guarantee you any control over how it's executed (and very likely
none of the reward).

~~~
bob1029
This is a dilemma I struggle with currently. I have several product ideas that
I can either run 100% on my own, or I can try to convince my current CEO that
we should start building these out and selling them to our existing client
base.

The advantage of starting your own path is that you get 100% autonomy over
every decision and every client that you take on. This can give you an
incredible uplift because nothing is ever in your way from an
organization/people/politics angle.

The disadvantage is that you have to rebuild all that corporate boilerplate in
order to establish name/brand/reputation/process/etc. You also don't have many
constraints acting upon you when starting from zero, and you can wind up
making piles of decisions that roll-up into disaster.

I think the best course of action would be to present your ideas to executive
leadership. If you can secure some equity share in the organization or
products you propose, this is easily the fastest and least stressful way to
get them to market. Being able to reuse your same HR, marketing & sales teams
can save you potentially years of headache.

If your current organization is gigantic or otherwise inflexible, you are
probably best suited building out your project on your own time, incorporating
LLC over the weekend, etc. One day you just put in your notice and move on
with your dream.

------
hathym
>If someone drives a billion dollars of incremental value then why not pay
them $25 million

LOL, You are lucky if your managers did not take credits of everything you
achieved.

------
vemv
I have the feeling that the introductory story about Zoom and Webex wasn't
quite like that. I think I remember some HN comments detailing it.

For one thing you can't "just" create a replacement; you need employees,
capital etc.

So it was much more likely a game of politics rather than one of innovation.

A more useful example would be one involving engineers, not a senior tech
exec.

------
Jare
Companies also lose their worst innovators the same way - we get to find out
who was which afterwards.

(*) we find out through success or failure, which is at best a proxy.

------
ChrisMarshallNY
An important consideration is corporate focus.

Any organization (not just a corporation) has to have a lodestar; a “shared
vision.”

In some cases, this is a “boat anchor,” preventing the organization from
moving forward, but in many cases, it is the thing that holds it together, and
allows it to continue its existence; albeit, at a humble scale.

Sometimes, a “boat anchor” is necessary.

Not all organizations are about continuous growth, or even innovation. They
may be a “do one thing, and do it well” type of shop, where growth and
innovation can actually be harmful.

I know, because I worked in a company like that. They found a product line
that was crazy profitable, and it changed the company culture quite
drastically. For many years, the company grew like a wildfire. The focus
became “blurred.” Lots of money poured in, but I feel like the company may
have “lost its soul,” so to speak. The original “lodestar” was never
sufficiently replaced with a new focus.

Then, the bottom fell out of the market, and the company suffered an
implosion. They contracted back to their “roots,” where a conservative mindset
took over.

Will they survive? I’m not sure, but over a century, they did weather numerous
disasters and roadblocks (like having a lot of their assets turned to kindling
in war). I sincerely wish them well. Despite my frustrations there, I have
nothing but respect for them. I learned many important values that I never
would have learned at other organizations.

But they are like a cactus; ideal for the harsh conditions of a desert. They
are not well-suited for temperate rainforest, where so many other plants
thrive.

Innovation and risk-taking was difficult (not impossible) at that company, and
many of my efforts to introduce change never bore fruit. It was my decision to
remain with them, despite that.

Basically, some organizations are just not places where innovative staff can
thrive. They are stony, dry soil; ideal for cactus, but not for redwood trees.
That is not always a bad thing.

In those cases, the innovators either have to accept that they will have to
live within great constraints, or they will need to move on.

------
dnautics
Midway the article talks about risks and incentive, and that not all
innovators will want to leave the nest. I'd say though, if you're already in a
place where you're internally innovating, by virtue of the fact that you've
already deigned to challenge internal culture, practices, or product roadmap,
you're the type to take high-payoff risks. There should be a strong positive
bias for leaving among internal innovators.

Probably the only reasonable way for a company to be able to take profit from
these innovators is to make it easy to spin out with a favorable equity
position.

------
sergioisidoro
> Creating a billion dollars of incremental value at a startup yields untold
> riches for the entrepreneurs behind the venture. Creating a billion dollars
> of incremental value within a large corporation may be recognized, but the
> rewards are nowhere near the same level as a startup.

Isn't this the most obvious reason? If you have an idea and the capabilities
to develop it for your own gain, why would you do it so the shareholders of
your old company can buy a new yacht, while you struggle to buy an apartment?

~~~
koheripbal
Because the risks are different. Most startups fail and founders often lose
money. At a big company, the risk of failure still comes with a fulltime
salary.

------
bananaface
I don't think this has anything to do with the particular reward structure at
one company or whether this or that company encourages it. It's a structural
problem.

Unless innovators are rewared with equity _in the innovation_ (not the broader
company - the reward needs to be tightly coupled with the power of the
innovation), there's no incentive to produce extremely successful innovations.
You won't be rewarded for outliers. That's all there is to it.

~~~
lumost
In most companies you will be penalized for outliers, high risk projects often
come with their share of detractors.

~~~
hkt
It is worth noting that a project that would raise internal criticism would
often have a reasonable chance of success as a startup in its own right.
Investors are generally more rational than colleagues.

------
idclip
Not saying i had the best work life balance, and ive learned my lesson of not
wasting air time on deaf ears...

I was so enthusiastic after graduating .. i adopted the product, made it
upgradable (8 year old repo, 1 programmer before me who was a sysadmin) - made
it into a modern 12 factor app, before i even knew what that was.

One thing i learned is that innovators dont belong in certain environments ..
those innovators didnt belong where they were .. and that was their wake up
call, at least, it was mine.

Now i found a work place that appreciates me energy, and took me in as a
fullstack dev and im so thankful, and careful. Im sure some devs there cant
hear what i have to say. I learned, to speak less. Do more. Hobby? Ill make my
own. A work place needs me to make it better - not to have me judge it .. its
not easy thing to balance or properly execute if you Want to keep your soul.

For my next job, I was careful, it took me 4 months of interviews that tried
to pitch a junior/mid and secretly wanted a senior .. but eventually, i found
a home.

But sometimes its really necessary to wake up, and see that your efforts are
being wasted, and move on. Left them better than i found them, and but i
neglected myself and it was a valuable lesson in self care and the
significance of my own time.

Another important lesson is growing beyond having milk teeth .. we should look
around, and see where we are, and what kind of people are there ... are we
making enemies, or injecting spirit?

Its no easy, those devs didnt belong in those companies to begin with. It was
a life lesson to all involved.

~~~
emerged
It feels very different once you escape a toxic environment. It's as true for
us as engineers as it is for victims of domestic violence or any other sort of
toxic relationship.

~~~
idclip
a powerful experience .. it does feel like a new lease on life.

------
dfilppi
Not sure there is a solution for this. To create a money machine like Cisco is
extremely difficult and valuable. It is natural that the culture becomes more
conservative, plus large orgs are conservative by necessity and bureaucratic.
Also, most innovators won't put in max effort when they dont have full control
and are under tremendous pressure. In a big rich org like Cisco, the comfy
status quo is always whispering to you.

------
gumby
This article is confused in its examples. The Nespresso story was posted
yesterday.

Cisco is pretty explicit about the model: its not uncommon that someone quits
to develop a promising technology (and even someone else quits to develop an
alternative approach). If one or both fail, or come in second, you VP an get
your job back. While if one succeeds Cisco can buy the company.

This allows them to provide bonuses for developing something new without
screwing up their comp system and allows smart people to develop new stuff
even if there are institutional biases.

For many years they were an acquisition machine for this reason. Really the
opposite of today’s “Acquihire” model.

So not a failure at all.

------
TwoBit
Companies - especially market leaders - are averse to creating products that
compete against themselves.

~~~
mymusings
That is precisely what Steve Jobs explains quite well in his biography. He
says, if Apple does not invent the next big product, someone else will. So,
why not cannibalize our existing product with new ones than let someone else
do it? But, not all companies are Apple and not all products are the same. So,
it really depends if companies what to take the risk.

~~~
fendy3002
Still, there are some expectations from customer that limit the product's
innovation. Let's take Iphone, from the first version to latest one customers
expect a slim phone with touch screen.

Customers want "this product but better", that the innovation will be limited
around that product's initial characteristics.

Of course another line of product can be independently developed, but it's
riskier as customers may or may not want that kind of product.

~~~
mymusings
Certainly agree. Except for the watch, Apple has made existing products way
better than how they were initially introduced. In fact, pictures taken using
the iPhone are almost as good as a high end digital camera, if not with a
DSLR.

Having that said, I think the new product innovation has ground to a halt
after Steve Jobs, mainly because of the overall mindset of the company
changing from a services centric one from a product centric one. Their focus
has gone onto News, Music, Storage, Cloud and other service areas. Macs and
Phones continue to get refreshed but are too pricey for the quality they
offer, which is why they have not been able to make a dent outside EU, US and
China (or in other words, emerging markets).

------
kls
I really don't see this as a problem, the current org already has a focus on a
product it innovated and the innovator leaving for their own venture allows
themselves and fellow risk takers to capture more value for their idea, thus
distributing wealth across a broader spectrum. This is how it should be. Had
said innovator brought their product to fruition under the current corporate
umbrella they would get a bonus and promotion at best. Meanwhile the product
would not be the corporations core focus or competency and would most likely
be diluted to help push their core product.

------
mmhsieh
Fixing this will be the exception rather than the rule. The author identifies
it: the incentives are all wrong once you become a mature company.

How likely is it, for instance, that Zoom will internally develop the VR chat
app that will be to Zoom what Zoom is to Cisco?

~~~
loopz
Could be likely and still not the right idea or execution. Most comments on
Zoom is hindsight and survivor bias.

~~~
AznHisoka
And narrative curve fitting. I doubt the story was as simple as some laid it
out.

------
bladegash
This article reminded me of a book by Ed Catmull (one of the founders of
Pixar) called Creativity, Inc. The book is essentially about how Pixar has
worked to foster creativity in a company where their business model pretty
much relies on it. There are also some interesting Steve Jobs tidbits as well.
I didn't really like the second half of the book, but the first half was
fantastic!

From my personal experience, I think the major thing that always stymied
creativity for me was office politics. Having to constantly watch your back
for someone with a knife can really drain your energy from just, you know,
doing a job you otherwise enjoy.

------
say_it_as_it_is
Zoom didn't succeed at Cisco's failure. It wasn't Cisco's lunch that was
eaten. Zoom succeeded _because_ the founder left and organized a venture. A
new organization, a new culture, new leadership, and so so much luck
contribute to the outcome.

Only thing Cisco could have done better was establish a venture capital
division to fund work beyond its internal controls. Yet, they would probably
only fund ideas by top performers and this in itself wouldn't ensure greater
success because metrics, politics and culture driving employees performance do
not imply excellence or deficits.

------
allo37
Is there a bit of survivorship bias in this? You hear these stories about how
some big company poo-pooed some employee's idea, only for that employee to run
off and turn it into the next big thing, but you never hear about all the
ideas that never quite worked out.

I not saying big corporate environments don't stifle innovation but maybe
there's some sanity in not investing in every "innovative" idea?

------
m0zg
If you innovate, you have to have the freedom to fail, often repeatedly. Most
companies (large or small) do not tolerate failure, especially the repeated
kind.

~~~
Waterfall
I heard the opposite, where people like those who tried and failed, which is
why trump's failures were seen as good. Its better to try and fail than never
try.

~~~
m0zg
It's different if it's your own company though. You can fail as much as you
want, until you run out of money. :-)

------
atlgator
When corporations are actively pushing a “skills don’t matter” narrative
innovation isn’t even in the ballpark anymore.

------
known
Innovation is 2 types 1\. Incremental 2\. Disruptive And Context is 2 types
1\. Internal 2\. External

Totally we can see 8 options here; Pick the best one that fits in your
company;

------
xornox
I have not ever been working in a company, which would reward innovation
meaningful way. Why I would give any ideas free for anyone?

If I have a good idea, I will benefit for it or nobody.

------
dennis_jeeves
Related article of mine. Why good organizations decline:

[https://realminority.wordpress.com/](https://realminority.wordpress.com/)

------
westurner
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23886158](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23886158)

> _Three reasons companies lose their best innovators._

> _1\. They fail to recognize and support the innovators_

> _2\. Innovation becomes a herculean task_

> _3\. Corporations don’t match rewards with outcomes_

While the paragraphs under point 2 do discuss risk and the paragraphs under
point 3 do discuss rewards, I'm not sure this article belongs here.

Risk and Reward.

Large corporations are able to pay people by doing things at scale; with
sufficient margin at sufficient volume to justify continued investment. Risk
is minimized by focusing on ROI.

Startups assume lots of risk and lots of debt and most don't make it.
Liquidation preference applies as the startup team adjourns (and maybe open-
sources what remains). In a large corporation, that burnt capital is reported
to the board (which represents the shareholders) who aren't "gambling" per se.
"You win some and you lose some" is across the street; and they don't have
foosball and snacks.

How can large organizations (nonprofit, for-profit, governmental) foster
intrapreneurial mindsets without just continuing to say "innovation" more
times and expecting things to happen? Drink. "Innovators welcome!". Drink
water.

"Intrapreneurial." What does that even mean? The employee, within their
specialized department, spends resources (time, money, equipment) on something
that their superior managers have not allocated funding for because they want:
(a) recognition; (b) job security; (c) to save resources such as time and
money; (d) to work on something else instead of this wasteful process; (e)
more money.

Very few organizations have anything like "20% time". Why was 20% time thrown
off the island to a new island where they had room to run? Do they have
foosball? Or is the work so fun that they don't even need foosball? Or is it
worth long days and nights because the potential return is enough money to
retire tomorrow and then work on what?

Step 1. Steal innovators to work on our one thing

Step 2.

Step 3. Profit.

20% Project:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20%25_Project](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20%25_Project)

Intrapreneurship:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrapreneurship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrapreneurship)

Internal entrepreneur:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_entrepreneur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_entrepreneur)

CINO: Chief Innovation Officer / CTIO: Chief Technology Innovation Officer
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_innovation_officer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_innovation_officer)

... Is acquiring innovation and bringing it to scale a top-down process? How
do we capture creative solutions and then allocate willing and available
resources to making that happen?

awesome-ideation-tools: [https://github.com/zazaalaza/awesome-ideation-
tools](https://github.com/zazaalaza/awesome-ideation-tools)

------
lhpz
If you look at what a company really is from a different perspective, then it
makes complete sense that an internal innovator cannot exist inside any
established organization. Let’s examine how any company came to be: it first
started with a few individuals with a shared project, who maybe managed to
obtain resources beyond their own resources, for example by raising external
capital. With these resources, they create a product or service, and more
importantly look for customers. They may not find customers immediately, but
through a long and painful trial and error process, they will try many
different recipes before they actually discover the recipe to find customers.
Companies who can’t find enough customers will die. Initial capital is just
delaying this fatal outcome. During this first phase till initial success, the
organization is very fluid. The company strategy can be completed changed, the
product can be completely changed, the production process can be completely
changed … basically anything can be completely changed. A newly established
organization is fluid and can reconfigure itself quickly, because it is still
small, and more importantly it has nothing to lose doing so.

After a recipe to some initial commercial success has been painfully
discovered, then the only strategy that make sense is to replicate it to grow
the company. The initial recipe will be scientifically and meticulously
improved, optimized, refined and scaled in all its components. Possibly by
deploying additional capital, because the investment is now much less risky.
This is what professional managers do. They perfect the execution of a recipe
and balance risks doing so. Because now, as an established company with many
shareholders, thousands of employees, suppliers, customers … the company has
so much to lose by doing anything risky. Any established company must be risk
averse or it will quickly disappear.

Fast forward a decade or more of commercial success optimizing the same recipe
with a risk-averse mindset, which still has room for some internal innovation
but only of the incremental type, then any company is no longer fluid but
solid. If it’s a public company obsessed with short terms returns, then it’s a
very dense solid. It is also a large organization by now, with many
gatekeepers to company resources. An internal innovator would have to convince
all of these gatekeepers for any significant new endeavor. This is clearly
impossible unless the internal innovator is the CEO of the company. That's why
companies lose their best innovators. That’s why significant innovation cannot
be produced inside large companies, but it can nevertheless be brought in via
acquisitions ... sometimes from ex-employees who left to start their own
company!

What you see as an established company today, you can also see as a “fossil of
its past successes”. That’s why an established company cannot be an innovation
machine in my opinion. This was not always the case in the past. It’s probably
a consequence of contemporary professional management, with too much emphasis
on short-term, low risk and immediate returns.

