
‘Give Away Your Legos’ and Other Commandments for Scaling Startups - astdb
http://firstround.com/review/give-away-your-legos-and-other-commandments-for-scaling-startups/
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URSpider94
Great article, this is absolutely true. My greatest managers and mentors have
been the ones who delegated a domain to me without micromanaging or meddling
-- it made me feel valued, as well as let me know I was fully accountable for
the outcome. Meanwhile, they were free to focus on other areas of the
business, or even pursue new opportunities.

For myself, I once had to forego an assignment that I wanted because my boss
didn't think he could do without me. This was a wake-up call for me that I
needed to "hire my replacement" to give me the ability to move on.

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shostack
> _" Adding people doesn’t mean there’s less work for the people that are
> already there. It means that the entire company can do more."_

I wish the article expanded further on this in the section on firing beyond
the mantra of "fire fast." Taking the infamous Netflix presentation as an
example, there may be plenty of other jobs that need to be done at the
company, but the reality is the generalist wearing multiple may need to be
swapped for a specialist wearing one or two. So there may not be any other
jobs for that generalist, and it isn't necessarily a critique of their
performance.

While the article touches briefly on this, it doesn't seem to follow through
and connect it with the examples of questions/concerns people voice during
phases of growth and team changes.

Unfortunately, unless it is deeply ingrained in the culture, it is often not a
great approach as a manager to tell a team "well, your concerns are justified
and we'll be evaluating whether there's still opportunities that are a good
fit for you here." But that is ultimately the candid answer I think a lot of
employees might be looking for in response to the sorts of questions the
article gives as examples.

~~~
pbreit
It's hard for me to believe that you can't find roles in a growing company for
a generalist. My experience has certainly been different.

~~~
eru
Especially since you will be a specialist in the company's chosen technology
and processes.

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DonHopkins
Reminds me of the time when Sun Microsystems fell apart into several different
companies: SunSoft, Sun Labs, etc.

Scott McNealy called an all-hands meeting, and made grand sweeping gestures
with his arms while imploring everyone: "Stop hugging your trees! Everyone has
to let go of their tree! No more tree hugging!"

As if we understood what the hell he was talking about because we'd all read
the same management self-help books about preventing tree hugging in large
corporations that he had, and that by making tree hugging and releasing
gestures, everybody would be able to empathize with him and figure out what
the the fuck he meant.

After the meeting, I confronted my manager: "You never game me a tree! Why
didn't I ever get a tree? I want my tree! I promise not to hug it, but I want
one too!"

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dwd
One issue: Lego is the plural of Lego.

Legos make tomato paste.

Sidenote: If you're trying to coin a catchy phrase - make sure it's correct
and doesn't play into a grammatical flame war.

~~~
toxican
I just can't bring myself to care. I'm a life-long lego fan, been playing with
them since I was old enough to play with Duplo. As an adult, I've got shelves
covered in lego sets, a lego brick tattooed on my wrist, and saw Lego Movie on
release day. And I don't give a single shit what people call the bricks so
long as it's not megablok, one of the other knockoff brands, or for some
reason K'Nex.

I'm not lego's marketing department, I'm not their lawyer, I'm not their CEO.
It's not up to me to give a crap about the pedantic nonsense that is their
preference for how you refer to their product. It's not brand confusion. Lego,
Legos, LEGO, LEGOS, whatever. People know what you're talking about, and they
aren't getting the name "lego" mixed up with anything. People that see the
Megabloks and other knock offs and think that they're legos are what they need
to worry about. But an informed child, consumer, etc. knows better already. It
didn't take very many Megablok sets before I realize they were incredibly
inferior in quality and the colors were way off. Lego is obviously the
superior product even to a child.

Okay so I lied. I do care, a lot. More than I should. But I'm just so sick of
pedantic idiots hopping into conversations like some sort of know it all "WELL
ACTUALLY....". Fuck off. Lego, legos, LEGOS, LEGO, doesn't matter we all know
what's being talked about. And derailing discussions over that nonsense is
obnoxious.

~~~
dwd
A discussion is what it is and in this case a meta discussion on the language
used in an article is no less appropriate given the response.

I couldn't bring myself to read it and wasn't alone and it annoyed me enough
to say something. Should she have known better or care - maybe not. Her
audience is probably just Silicon Valley and extend to the rest of the US.

But this is the Internet, so welcome to the wider world.

~~~
toxican
Honestly if you can't bring yourself to read an article because of a brand
used incorrectly, you need to get a grip. Fast.

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vkjv
> "During her 4+ years at Facebook, the company exploded from 500 employees
> serving 80 million users to 5,500 employees and over 1.1 billion users."

Tangential to the article. But, I find it kind of surprising that the employee
to user base growth was linear. I would expect it to be closer to logarithmic
in a well run company. Although I have no data points. Am I off base?

~~~
ra1n85
Sorry for the nitpick, but is it logarithmic or exponential in this case?

To the point, I would not be surprised if 5,500 was the "settling" point. In
my experience, the hiring pendulum takes some time to swing far enough to
include an adequate number of employees in a rapidly scaling environment.
(e.g., I would not be surprised if 500 million users were served by 750
employees.)

~~~
zeckalpha
Further more, without a third datapoint, it will always be linear. Unless
you're including 0,0?

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pbreit
I dunno, hopping on board the rocket ship still seems a lot easier than
building the rocket ship.

~~~
cableshaft
But building the rocket ship is more fun.

Especially if you know it's going to explode midair once it's launched and you
don't have to be in it when it does.

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zeckalpha
Cognitive dissonance: This seems true to me, and so does the idea that adding
people to a project late in the game makes it later (as per Fred Brooks).

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butttransaction
There is some good advice buried in this nauseatingly sycophantic puff piece.

~~~
analognoise
I hate the infantilism of modern "tech". We're adults who play in ball pits,
have a ping pong table, office Nerf wars, and have our metaphors in Lego
format, pre-chewed for easy digestion!

And there are plenty of people who eat that shit up. I know a lot of engineers
are a bit socially retarded, but is it helping us to progress to accept this
infantilization? Can we stop pretending to be "big kids"?

~~~
LoSboccacc
amen, the faster we can give away with the bros office culture the better.

sadly it's central to the silly con valley ploy, so don't expect change to
come out from here. there's plenty company out there that value
professionalism out of its workforce, but those aren't building cool toys for
mid twenties bros.

~~~
kevinmobrien
Amen here, as well.

I've spent the last 17 years working for (and now running) tech startups in
Boston; the worst of them ceded all fun to cube farms, but the best of them
never went all-in on the culture described here. Perhaps there is an east/west
coast division here?

I look at the folks working alongside me now, building an incredibly
sophisticated machine learning engine for cybersecurity, and I wouldn't think
to draw upon a Lego metaphor for what they're doing. It's hard, substantive,
mathematical work, and certainly not akin to playing with toys. I expect my
senior engineers, sales guys, and marketers to be both protective of the brand
we're building and understanding of the need to grow fast and expand our
teams.

~~~
err4nt
I live in Toronto and work independently. Productivity = prosperity, and so I
live a life of work punctuated by relaxation an rest.

Of the tech companies that have tried to woo me, most fall into this
infantilization trap and its such a big turn-off. If the reason I should come
work with you is because you have a foosball table and on fridays you put a
keg in the break room......I want to build things! I want to create. I will
take your company and move it forward, I dont have time for ping pong.

Shouldnt the goal be to make your comoany rich, so you can be rewarded enough
to buy the comforts YOU want, instead of lounging in the comforts of an
employer as you work?

