Corporate Strategy
Corporate Strategy
117. Startup vs. Big Corporate
Join the lively banter with your hosts Bruce and Clark as they tackle the tightrope walk of health in the hustle of corporate life. You're not alone if you're trying to shed the lockdown lethargy or sneak in a cheeky afternoon walk to combat the computer-chair blues. We're sharing our own tales from the trenches—carb-cutting woes, the allure of treadmill desks, and why taking a stand (literally) might just be the secret weapon in your fitness arsenal. Trust us, we're right there with you, trying to punch back against the sedentary workday one step at a time.
Ever wondered what impact a tech reviewer's words have on the fate of shiny new gadgets? We crack open this can of worms, dissecting MKBHD's scorching review and its ripple effects across the tech pond. From Apple's latest offerings to the quixotic AI pins and Cybertrucks roaming our dreams, we get down to brass tacks about what’s truly innovative versus what’s just chasing the almighty dollar. And hey, did someone mention workplace satisfaction? Dive into our discourse on the clash between profit and contentment in the tech-sphere, and how that shapes the gadgets we love (or love to hate).
Feel like you're stuck in a maze of confused roles and responsibilities at work, especially when tech is just a side note? Clark and I pull back the curtain on the drama, from the sluggishness of large corporate entities to the electric agility of startups. We’re not shy about sharing our own facepalm moments—yes, that includes the great ravioli rebellion of 2021. As we wrap up, we'll toss you a lifeline with strategies to navigate the corporate circus, and give a shout-out to our action-packed community on Discord. Remember, it's not just about surviving the grind; it's about thriving amidst the chaos. So, come for the laughs, stay for the wisdom, and let's keep the conversation rolling.
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Can you feel it? Can you feel it down in your Craig recording?
Speaker 2:I don't like feeling it in my Craig. I try to avoid feeling things in my Craig when I can. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:You know what, craig, I'm feeling you.
Speaker 2:Don't feel without Craig's permission, if Craig don't consent, don't feel I'm just trying to open up the show flow. Give me, give me like.
Speaker 1:okay, I'm good, I'm good, you good. Right now are we in the elevator are we going ahead?
Speaker 2:we're going up welcome back to corporate strategy, the podcast. It could have been an email. I'm bruce and I'm clark clbe, check how you doing.
Speaker 1:I mean it may sound from that Vibe Check that I am doing well, but in fact that is false. I'm still cutting carbs. I'm not bearing the lead this time Still cutting carbs, I'll be honest. The afternoon time hits one or two o'clock and, whoo man, do you get tired, can I?
Speaker 2:Oh, crabby, I'm gonna ask a personal question, cause you're. People haven't seen you, but I'll give them a little spoiler hint here. You know Bruce and Clark. Clark is obviously a reference to Superman, and our Clark is quite an attractive young man, strapping. I would even go so far as to say Clark, why in the blue hell are you cutting carps?
Speaker 1:Well, one, you're way too kind. You're way too kind. I think you are a fine looking gentleman.
Speaker 2:Let's not do a compliment pod.
Speaker 1:It is so totally okay for us to acknowledge, you know, attractiveness, even though we are both heterosexual. Yes, absolutely, you can acknowledge attractiveness, it's okay. So, thank you, thank you for being the way that you are. Anything, oh, this is already getting off to a weird start. Um, yeah, so I, you know, as you get into a sedentary lifestyle, you know which you don't have corporate jobs you got to find ways to keep yourself fit and I would say last year was an extremely busy year, you know, just with travel, just with work, just with side hustle stuff, and I probably sat way more than I should have, and you know what I was like. You know what there's room to improve. I think the body's put on a little extra weight and it's time to start shredding that off and getting back to pre-COVID Clark.
Speaker 2:Okay, Feel fair. Do you stand? Do you have a standing desk? I do. I sit-stand. How much percentage sit-stand Oof?
Speaker 1:I probably only stand like two hours a day.
Speaker 2:That's not a lot. What if I told you the human being actually stands 99% of the day and it's only 1% sit?
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't disagree with you. I think I walk. Like when I go to the office I walk around quite a bit. So like today I was in the office or coming back, and like I was walking around, like walking from meeting to meeting. So I'd say I stand more when I'm in the office, but like when I'm doing work, I feel like I just forget to stand up here and there.
Speaker 2:I'm standing right now. Also, that was a callback to last week's episode. Clark, I'm really disappointed. You just dropped that on me. You just, you just let it go.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I can't just always acknowledge it. If I always, you know, acknowledge it I always give you that acknowledgement then you're just going to keep doing it, and sometimes you gotta shut it down. You think I'm gonna stop. I think I'm stopping. How long have we been friends, though? Hasn't stopped yet, so you ain't never stopping me so, yeah, maybe I need to start doing it more. Do you stand all day like?
Speaker 2:seven or eight hours. I try to get about four hours standing if possible, so I didn't row today, so it's a very easy stand day. On days when I row in the morning it's a little harder to stand four hours because my my leggies is already tired. Yeah, that's what I look into we actually uh.
Speaker 1:So we get a little home gym set up and I got a little treadmill and occasionally, when I'm listening to a meeting that you know I'm just listening into, sometimes I'll go out there and I'll just start working on the computer. I got a little shelf thing I put up and I can just walk on the treadmill and be on the computer at the same time.
Speaker 2:Did you know Clark Clark E Clarkerson? They actually have an office desk treadmill.
Speaker 1:I actually did see that and my wife recommended it. She's like, hey, you need this because you don't need to go in the garage, you can do it in here.
Speaker 2:Pro tip for all of those corporate cats out there who work from home on their Zooms all day. I see when you're walking on the treadmill and it's incredibly distracting. I do see you.
Speaker 1:You've seen them bobbing up and down, it's so annoying.
Speaker 2:I hate it. It drives me nuts, but at the same time I get it and I respect the hustle.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you got to get a walk in and, like I, go for walks outside. You know, unfortunately in a place that I can do that where the air is pretty good quality. But you know, if you don't have that luxury, you need to find a way to move. It's natural for the body to move and you can really put some long-term bad health effects on your body if you don't implement those simple things like going for a walk every day. If you do that every day, it actually will have a really positive impact to your long-term health. So do it, do it folks. Get up right now. Pause the podcast. Get up, go for a walk. I know you're sitting, we can see you.
Speaker 2:Don't pause it. I mean, take us with you.
Speaker 1:Okay, put in the headphones. It's the easiest thing to walk to.
Speaker 2:Our podcast is best listened to while walking, breathing in that fresh, fresh outdoor air. I love it. Well, how are you? I'm good. Door air I love it. Well, how are you? I'm good. I still don't know why you're cutting carbs, though, but we'll move on. We'll move on. Have you seen Craig? Craig is just jacked.
Speaker 1:Craig is jacked, he's a jacked little bear with a microphone in his mouth. I guess you want to be like Bruce Lee cut, got it Registered, not confirmed a bear?
Speaker 2:Just want to be clear on that. That mystery is still out. That's true. True, he could be a beaver. We don't know. We do not know I'm, I'm, you know, I'm doing the, the, the the wild thing about me is and we'll get into this today because the topic lines up very well I work more now than I've ever worked in my life. Uh, I work more in a single day than I worked in a month at my previous job, just to give you an idea of how different things are. And it's maddening, it's exhausting, it's frustrating, but somehow, when I close the laptop, I feel great, I do feel good. I just I'm at this limit. You know, it's like I cannot think about work anymore, but I am happy. I cannot think about work anymore, but I am happy, I am happy. Does that sound good to?
Speaker 1:you, is that good I mean, I guess it's good.
Speaker 2:I'm not teetering on any kind of edge Like tomorrow's the day, I'm just going to quit my job. Screw it, I'm done. I'm not there. I'm not at that point. I do feel like I work more than most people I work with, which is frustrating. We'll get to that in the topic today. But you know, it's like, what can you do? Yeah, there are the doers and there are the people who steal the doers, work and go on ski trips and call it sales.
Speaker 1:You know, like that's. That's just the world we live in. There are drivers and then there are passengers. Yes, and some people, I think, just are naturally like it's innate in them to keep driving. And some people they just want to sit on the side and do a whole bunch of nothing well, some people don't get a choice whether or not they're drivers.
Speaker 2:They're, if they're the one who can do the job. It just gets assigned to them and they must do the job.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you're just forced to be the doer, be the driver, yeah that's definitely me. It is really annoying. When that does happen, I think I put myself. I've done it to myself. You sound like you've been put into that scenario yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:It's always great when they're like, well, who will do this task? And like, well, there's only one person who can. So why are we asking the question? You could just assign it to me, it's fine. It's fine, the person's not going to magically manifest in there. Oh, we had a third employee the whole time. Wow, they were here. Wow, they're able to do this work. Where were they all this whole time, the intelligence has been gifted to them by the technology gods, and now they can help me. That ain't happening.
Speaker 1:That ain't happening. You know what I do think, how you're feeling and how I'm feeling too. I didn't go into that detail. It's so relevant to our topic today.
Speaker 2:It is, I'm excited.
Speaker 1:And we're going to have two very different perspectives, which I'm excited about.
Speaker 2:Yes, before we get into the topic, I do want to hit on some news. Clark, have you seen the AI pin?
Speaker 1:Yes, I actually saw MKBHD on YouTube, did a little review.
Speaker 2:Yes, did you watch the original AI pin teaser trailer product pitch back in the day? Yeah, I was super excited for it, actually. Really. I thought the idea itself was cool, but then I thought, well, it's not tied into any ecosystem. I don't like the fact that it's like a mini body cam. There were things about it that just rubbed me the wrong way, but I thought maybe in the future this thing will be good, it'll warrant a purchase. But truth is even harsher than prediction yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:What they were saying like this is uh, mkbhd's like, uh. What did they say? Like evil era or something like that, because now he's just going to kill a company with his negative review, because I think he the review is like tell something like this is the worst product I've ever reviewed, yeah for now. And like this whole premise is like the apple vision too. So you've ever reviewed?
Speaker 2:yeah for now and like this whole premise is like the apple vision too.
Speaker 1:So you know he's yeah he's been on a tear, he's on his villain era, I guess you know I respect it, but no, I I agreed with what he said. Like he kind of summed it up and he basically was like either I'm an idiot, I can't see beyond, like the having a screen in front of me and this is, like you know, the best thing since sliced bread in the future just not yet, but it's going to be or it's just never going to get there and this is totally useless.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, I don't understand why face wearables are not becoming more popular like apple went. Apple went too far on the Vision Quest or Vision Pro, whatever the heck Like. Too big does too much like computationally, so it requires way too much technology. Like, why do we never get something that was between the Google Glass and the Apple Vision? Like there is a middle ground there that is probably comfortable, practical and not a weird pin thing Like you know what I'm saying?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really interesting, like if you think about, why did Apple do this?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Like what is their motivation? It's certainly not consumer ready. No, From like a whereabout. Like even just the dynamics of it, right, Like as you think about the size of it, to your point, the battery life of it, the actual things it can do, like then it's super impressive piece of technology, but it's almost like it's geared at like enterprise or like at, you know, certain manufacturing jobs, rather than like everyday consumer use. So it's like did they do it just because it's a strategic bet for them and they're going to continue to slim down the form factor and improve it and this is kind of just like their V1. Or, you know, are they just going in a whole different direction and they're like this is actually just for a whole different use case than the average consumer wearing it? I don't know.
Speaker 2:It's interesting to think about If it's a $3,400 beta, beta test. People are gonna be pissed you know like that that would not be those targets were.
Speaker 2:I have no idea like be really interesting to see that we are at a super interesting time where I mean, clearly we don't have capitalist correspondent alexa sheppo here with us today, but capitalism is really doing a number on everything right now.
Speaker 2:Like profits are at an all time high, but satisfaction of the normal working worker is not, and there's there's a weird dichotomy there, and I think we're starting to see this in business decisions and product development. Like they're just putting out these wild things trying to hoover up all the profits they can in this weird strange time Cause. Like the AI pin, the Tesla cyber truck, the Apple vision pro all of these things scream Like there was a good idea in there somewhere, but you, what you delivered, is not a good idea, and I don't think this is going to stop. I think we're going to continue to see some really weird crap come out just across the board. I'm excited for it, but at the same time, I do think this is a result of not being able to take time to think about things anymore and just always rushing to hit that profit for the next quarter.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really interesting yeah I haven't thought about it like that.
Speaker 1:But it's, it's a good point. And you guys, you kind of look in hindsight of around or of what's around and what's been recently released from all these companies. It certainly seems that way, like that's a good hypothesis. Yeah, it's. I'm trying to put in my head like why else? You know it's because, like the ai pin, like it's. I'm trying to put in my head like why else? You know it's because, like the AI pin, like it's a pretty novel idea. It feels like everyone's searching for that, that next big thing, the next breakthrough, that next form factor that's going to like replace the phone or, to your point on, like the Cybertruck, like it's going to take over, you know, modern. I don't even know what that use case is. I can't even come up.
Speaker 2:That's how bad it is. I can't even things like it exists and you look at what tesla produced and put out there a couple years later you're like, well, this is a total devolution of what already existed in the market today. Right ai pin same thing. It's like this is a complete and total backslide on what we feel like we're evolving towards, I mean, I would even argue, the Apple vision. I don't know what the thing is. Is it Apple vision pro?
Speaker 1:pro plus. Don't add quest in there. You know, Steve Jobs with Rowan is great If you put quest.
Speaker 2:That's the thing is, there is already the meta quest, there's the valve index, there's all these gamer oriented products that have really solid games and apps in their own little marketplace. They're very fun to play with and, you know, it's not something you can hook up to a weird cell phone sized battery and haul around in the New York subway which good luck with that if that's your goal but they're, you know, literally a tenth of the cost. What's going on there? I just I don't get it and it just it feels like all these companies are trying to develop things in a vacuum and put things out that are uniquely their own thing, instead of looking at the market and what people like and want to use and trying to be competitive with those things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like there's always been like going back to the AI pin. It really does feel like they're trying to get rid of the phone. Yes, right, like, just reimagine everything the phone can do, but now you do with your voice, with very minimal, like you having to type things in on a screen or go towards things that's like you activate with your voice. I think it is a super novel idea and if technology was there, I think it'd be really interesting, like AI being able to map out, you know, thoughts that you had be able to do, things like request Uber for you, request food for you, make a reservation for you, like all those integrations. If they were snappy and on demand, I think it makes sense.
Speaker 1:I think I just struggle with the voice input, too, as being the next step. I don't know if you feel this way, bruce, but voice input, too, as being the next step. I don't know if you feel this way, bruce, but voice input being that next innovative thing, like, what are people going to walk around just speaking to their phone for everything they do? Like, do you really think that's going to happen? As you're walking around in places and like, rather than typing things in? I get like it's an alternate thing. But the AI pen the only way to interact with it is primarily voice. You can use the little hand gesture things. They have a little super granular like little display that displays on your hand and you can do natural gestures, but the primary input is voice, which just doesn't feel like that's what consumers want.
Speaker 2:I got a. I got a puzzle for you, clark. I want you to think about your keyboard. All right, just think about your keyboard. I'm looking at it to type. You're looking're looking at it. Right, think about the evolution of this old device. Everyone who's not taking a walk right now, look at the keyboard and think about the evolution of this device that's in front of you. This thing was once plugged in to a physical machine that used ink to push little arms on a piece of paper and slap a letter on there, and it has evolved into something that plugs into a digital device. But what hasn't changed? Right, like the home row, asdf, jkl, colon. Right, like we know deep down that our 10 digits can masterfully put out hundreds of words per minute if talented enough with this device and have done so for a long time pre-computer typewriter. Right, what happened in the last 20 years? We still have the keyboard, but what do people primarily type on?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we made it a screen.
Speaker 2:We put it on a screen, but it's still the same concept.
Speaker 1:It's not.
Speaker 2:We got worse because we had 10 things working for us on the keyboard. Now we have two, or if you're a swiper, you have one, and I don't know what's actually faster thumbs or swipe, but I can tell you this neither are as good as actual 10 fingers on a keyboard, knowing what you're doing. And now we're devolving even further. I gotta use voice like we've lost. We've lost technology by trying to improve it, and it's frustrating to me. Yeah, instead of thinking about what works, we're constantly trying to build something new that's going to just disrupt the market, dominate the times, and like we're losing things that are good.
Speaker 1:It's like they're trying to come up with their iPhone moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and to your point, it's like like, I mean I get it If the future of like everything you've seen and all the like 2030, we're going to have flying cars and we're going to be able to have a form factor that goes on our face and it sees everything and knows what we're thinking, and all that like that, that picture has been painted for us. But I think, in actuality, a thing that's non-intrusive, a thing that's the most efficient, even if it's not like as lightweight form factor, you make those sacrifices, like. To your point on the keyboard, yeah, I think anybody who works enough on a keyboard is faster at typing on a keyboard than they are in their phone, and that's why email I mean a lot of people do it on their phone, but email, typically in a corporate environment, is still done on a keyboard because it's more efficient. You're faster typing those things out, rather, rather than going to your phone and sending long form emails. You know it can be done on the phone, which is great, but it's just not as efficient, and so everybody still falls back to it. And so, yeah, exactly your point.
Speaker 1:I mean it's really interesting thought it's like. Are we actually falling backwards by trying to be innovative at the same time?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like it's. It's weird. You think about cameras and in many ways the phone camera is the perfect opposite of that. Right like with software plus hardware plus a good camera lens, your phone can take a faster, better picture than likely 99.9 percent of the population can take. Right with a canon or nikon, it's three thousand dollars and that's just because they've made that process better through the combination of hardware and technology. We're not doing that with other things. Like, I feel like we should be doing the phone camera for everything, but we're not and it's really strange to me yeah, yeah, it's interesting to think about because, yeah, everybody's pushing voice Me and that work.
Speaker 1:We're talking about multimodal input voice and text and now you can enter into images and we can recognize what that is, and I'm like I just don't see it. I just don't see how voice is that next thing? The AI pin review. If you guys haven't seen it, yeah, it's literally a thing that goes on your shirt, or shirt or on your coat or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like a little tiny badge, it's got a little camera and it has only like one pad for input and basically what you do is you just hold it down and you speak into it and it uses natural language processing and ai to basically do things, but it's so limited and because ai queries still take a long time, it's slow so no, there's no use case for it.
Speaker 1:Like, as you watch this review, it's like he asked a very simple question and it went out to the cloud and by the time that happened it was like 60 seconds and he's like I literally could have looked this up.
Speaker 1:I think he does a comparison with my phone.
Speaker 1:I'm like 10 seconds. So it was like this just doesn't make any sense, because it's way more efficient to use a screen in my fingers than it is to talk into something, no matter how good you know the input is. So not to say, like I think there is a place for having that natural language input and processing. Like, for example, I think I told you this before I said on this podcast I've been debriefing with chat GPT on work just on the way home on the drive, just like I'm talking to someone on the phone, so I'll kind of just talk into it. It will help me record my notes and make sense of my action items. Like I think that's a really good use case for it, but it's only because I'm stuck with both my hands driving, you know, and focusing on the road, so it's kind of just being like a virtual assistant, but in any other case, I'm not just going to sit out in public hanging out with my friends and just start talking into my phone for something I need to do.
Speaker 2:It's weird, it's very weird. I'm so curious, just in the next 365 days, what other nonsense we're going to see? Yeah, absolutely, but that's the news.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's certainly news it's interesting to think about and I think you had some really interesting perspectives I didn't think about either. So if you guys have any other thoughts, bring it to the Discord.
Speaker 2:Yeah, drop it in there. You know how you get to the Discord Clark. How do you get there? You certainly don't go to corporatestrategybiz. That's dot B-I-Z. That's not where you go anymore. You just open up the show notes on your podcast platform of choice. Click all the links. It's going to take you to our link tree where you can get to everywhere, including our super cool corporate fam, discord man that was easy, it's so easy.
Speaker 1:So simple.
Speaker 2:Go into corporate strategybiz. That's dot B-I-Z. You don't go there anymore.
Speaker 1:You know what's even better, it's free.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 1:It's free. That's true, it's free, and you can be a lurker, you can be a contributor. Please be a contributor, um, but man, it's great, it's good stuff. People are getting jobs, people are posting awesome memes. People are just blowing our minds in the middle of recording a podcast posting memes that are extremely relevant. That was uh. That moment was just wild so get in there.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of fun. Yeah, yeah, let's talk about our topic. I think we've danced around it enough, let's get to it. You messaged me with this today. I'm like, let's go, let's just do it. I'm feeling it, let's get into it. What are we talking about?
Speaker 1:yeah, let me introduce it so at work and we talked about this before. You know, I think I mentioned it last year as we were talking about braving in the new year. A lot of you know this. This is I mentioned it last year as we were talking about braving a new year. A lot of you know this is the coin term of saying people process technology like have those things in a good spot and your company is going to take off, go to the moon, all that good stuff. And so we started implementing those things. You know, we got some new technology, which has been great. We replatformed a bunch of stuff, which has been awesome. We hired in some new leaders, some new people with skill sets, which is great.
Speaker 1:And we put a new process and I won't get too specific about what the process is, but I'm at a large organization I think I mentioned before you know Fortune 500 level, like very large, and we've implemented so much process that we end up just talking about the process and being so restricted about the process that it actually inhibits work. And it's so painful because, like in the time and I'm not saying this, people say this to exaggerate in the time we have meetings, the work could get done and it literally is happening every single day. I attend a meeting where I'm like, just get the developer in here and just have him do the work, and it's going to be done, rather than having 10 people talk about the issue and trying to figure out the planning for the issue. And I started thinking about this and I was like, hey, you know what, bruce, it'd be a good topic because you're in a startup environment. I'm in a large enterprise environment. How do you find that middle ground between speed and efficiency and the right level of process and kind of distribution of tasks so that you are not burning out everyone else? So in a startup environment, you know everyone's doing everything and it's great because you can be so nimble, you can be so fast.
Speaker 1:I just need, you know, bruce, to sign off on this and this one other person. No other process we publish and our customers can see it, but a large enterprise, it's like all right. I got to go into like my long range planning for the next three to five years and then I got to you know, find if I need a vendor to support the initiative that I'm trying to do, and I got to map out requirements, documents and then I got to go through. You know solution and design and architecture, review of the technology Like there's 500 steps on every single effort because they're trying to safeguard everything and, you know, build things to scale that are going to be. You know something that we feel proud of as a company. But, man, is it painful going through all those hoops rather than just saying, hey, bruce, just go do this thing, ok, cool, see you next week.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so interesting. I love the topic because I'm currently going through a transformation, so I'll tell you how things were about a year ago. It's true, Regardless situation at a startup, you do wear many hats, and people say that. People roll their eyes like, yeah, sure, Many hats. Legitimately, If you go work at a startup, you will not be doing the job they hired you for. I promise you you will spend most of your day doing weird sales stuff or marketing stuff or product development stuff. It's not what they hired you for. But you're going to be doing it because no one else can Kind of like what we're talking about in the vibe check.
Speaker 2:Now, that's compared to your description long-term strategy planning, you know, kind of building up a process or thinking about a process, planning for a process. You don't do that early on in startup days. You just go because chances are who are you planning for? You're going to go do it, so go do it. Right, Like and that is very much the mentality Early days startup is hey, Bruce, we need X. Okay, that's me. Literally, there's 10 people here. No one else even has the remotest clue on how to do X. Okay, that's me that literally there's 10 people here. No one else even has the remotest clue on how to do X.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go do X now, and that's just that, and that's the expectation. You just go off and do it. You don't think about how, why, what for? You're just doing it because as a, as a team of very small people, like you know the CEO, the CEO, your developer, your marketer, your sales guy you're all in a room together and when someone says they need something, chances are they actually need it. So there is no planning. There's just I need this, go do it. And then you go do it and you come back and then you do the next thing. Now you need something, they go do it. That's very much early days. Now, what I'm going through right now is interesting because we started to create revenue quite a bit of it. We've hired a lot more people.
Speaker 2:We're over 100 employees now and we're chasing the dream of becoming a large enterprise company, and what I've seen happen is probably the most nightmarish of scenarios. It's your problem paired with my problem, and when you think about merging those two things together, you're constantly in meetings all day thinking about long term strategy and, at the same time, expected to go execute, because they still haven't hired someone who can help you do your job. So you're doing both. Hired someone who can help you do your job, so you're doing both. So my current day-to-day is actually me in meetings, half paying attention while doing the work that needs to get done before the deadline at the end of this week and hoping to God that I can actually execute on both fronts at the same time. It is the ultimate nightmare of nightmares and I recommend no one ever fall into a startup that is turning from startup into big boy company.
Speaker 1:It's so funny because this is someplace where we have the exact same problem, but for two different reasons. So everything you just said from the startup, you're on meetings all day, half paying attention, trying to get work done. I'm in so many meetings about process and crap, talking about planning for the meeting to prep for the other meeting, that I'm doing the same thing. I'm half paying attention because I'm like at some point during my day talking about process and prepping for things that need to be prepped and planned before the pre-plan. I need to do work and so, like I ended up doing work in the middle of meetings where, like I have no other choice. When am I going to do this? You know there's no time and so we both have that problem, regardless of where we're at. So interesting, but you have people. Well, the problem is I have people and I'll go into my grievances now. So you aired one of your grievances. I think we found a likeness. Now go into my grievances now.
Speaker 2:So you aired one of your grievances.
Speaker 1:I think we found a likeness. Now let's see what some of the differences are, of how you can combat it. I've got people, but there's process around doing things that they can't actually do anything, explain that. It sounds so stupid coming out of my mouth, so I'll try to make it abstract but also specific enough to get the point across. Please do so.
Speaker 1:Let's say, I haven't gotten funding for us to actually do any sort of development on a new effort. So, like I secured the idea and everybody agrees a good idea. Well, we can't just go do work. And everybody agrees it's a good idea. Well, we can't just go do work. Now I have to basically justify that. It fits into our funding or our whole entire technology organization. So it's like okay, what kind of capital dollars are we going to put against this? So I've got to go and get estimates and I've got to go understand the work.
Speaker 1:So I basically have to pull you in, bruce, for example, if you're an engineer, I have to be like hey, bruce, how long do you think this is going to take to do? And you got to, you know spitball and hope, you know here's a random guess. You know, maybe three months. And so it's like, okay, great, well, let's keep talking about the thing. But actually you can't start the thing until we go through all this process.
Speaker 1:So you're going to sit in all these meetings with me, so you understand the thing, and then we're going to wait to actually start the thing until we actually get the approval. And then what you're going to come back, bruce, is you're going to tell me hey, I think I can do this in like three days. And I'm like, oh great, three days, that's so awesome. Ok, great, well, let's go ahead and do it. It's like wait, no, no, no, it's not funded, so we have to wait two. Great, let's start doing it. And by that point we've probably spent, you know, five X what it would have cost to actually do this in the first place, just talking about doing the work.
Speaker 2:And now we have to do the work. You explained to me a little bit further about the funding part, Cause this is the. That's the part I don't get in your your story here, Cause you're both paid employees or you and I are both paid employees in the store. What are you funding? It's our jobs to do the work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it all depends on how your company, like my company for example our primary function as a business is not technology, but we're supporting our business with technology. So we're not a technology company per se, right? We don't sell software, that's not what we do. So we build technology to support it. Meaning the broader initiative kind of looks at us as like an investment, of saying, like we give you dollars, please deliver value, and so we get a bucket of money and we have to justify ourselves for those dollars.
Speaker 2:Essentially, what would happen if you didn't get the bucket of money? Do you sit there and continue to get paid?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you'll still get paid. The challenge is you can't actually start on the effort because it's not approved. Mark.
Speaker 2:I have the solution for you. Quit asking for money.
Speaker 1:I think that's the biggest issue is we have to justify all the dollars that we spend. So if it's not approved and justified, this is insane. It makes absolutely zero sense, and I think what we're trying to.
Speaker 2:So if it's not approved and justified, then you can't start it. This is insane.
Speaker 1:It makes absolutely zero sense, and I think what we're trying to shift kind of the perspective to say we don't need to justify projects and prove every penny to people who don't understand technology, it's you need to just fund us as an engineering organization and we're going to tell you the value we're going to provide and just give us this much money that will fund the teams. Don't care about what we work on, you know, just let us do the work. We're not there yet, which is extremely painful. But it goes back to the point of like we end up just talking more about the work than actually doing the work, because we're not allowed to do the work without talking about the work. And it's just an ever ending loop of like just stupidity.
Speaker 1:You get these meetings talking about this and you're just like what are like what are we talking about? About this thing again like why don't we just go do the work? And so it creates this culture of handoffs where it's like, all right, you, bruce, you might say, well, you know I could do this work, but I'm not approved to do this work, so I'm just going to sit here on my hands and do nothing. Oh so I have an approved piece of work to do and so no one. What's happening? And I'm realizing this no one's taking initiative anymore because of all the red tape. They're like, well, yeah, I mean I could go like update that wiki or I could go fix that tech debt item, but that's not an approved piece of work.
Speaker 2:So I guess I'm going to wait for an approved piece of work. This is where we differ. I think this is the big difference between well, I didn't have this problem at my old enterprise job, but when you compare the startup putting on its big boy pants to your current situation, my meetings are about more work that I also have to be doing while I'm doing work from other meetings that needs to get done. There is no approval process. It's simply, bruce, go do the work, no-transcript, all we have time for, and I'm sure it's going to cost you a lot of money. I would take advantage of the system so hard. So that's what's happening.
Speaker 1:Well, it's happening twofold you should take advantage of it.
Speaker 1:Well, it's happening twofold. Well, I think the one thing to note is, when you get to a certain level, you don't have to be funded anymore. You can basically do whatever you want. That's where I'm at now. But that's the problem, right? Because then everybody who's at that level is expected to do all the pre-work, prep, the work for the other people doing all the main work. You see what I'm saying. So I don't have to get approval to do work, because I don't have to record that, because I'm at a certain executive, I'm putting air quotes up, I'm already paid for it's kind of what it looks at, but everyone else is not. So I've got to prep work for them. So it kind of just gives me more work at the end of the day.
Speaker 1:But the problem then and I think other organizations have this divulge twofold, and this is what's really bad about it lately. First of all, the low-level individual contributors. I don't say low-level in a bad way, I just mean you're actually like writing code, for example. You end up just sitting on your hands and doing exactly what you said gaming the system. It's like oh, this is great, I don't have to be forced to work on anything because I can just say it's not approved. Sorry, I can't do it. It's the best situation in the world for an individual contributor who doesn't feel like taking a ton of initiative.
Speaker 1:The second thing that's really bad about it is the process becomes such a problem that you start hiring people to manage the process and they don't actually do any coding work or any development work or any valuable work to the deliverable. They're just organizers of pushing around the work to say, okay, let's get it to the next step in the process. You know we need this, this and this. And then they reach out to people like me and like, hey, we need this. And I'm like why don't we just go and get the work done?
Speaker 2:Like well, we can't. It's not through. End result Like this is. This is like man, this is wild. You know, like I'm not a fan of my problem because it's just exhausting. But at the end of the day I get a lot of stuff done Like I'll pat myself on the shoulder and say like I get crap done on top of going to all these meetings, so like there's still something to show for it. But they're. What you're describing is a very real possibility where you spend all day doing something, all week doing something, all month doing something and having absolutely nothing to show for it, because you can't fund people you're already paying. Do work that they should be. So do they sit around and twiddle their thumbs? Yeah, at times. Can you hire me?
Speaker 1:Can I come work for you? You know, I've literally thought at times. I'm like I should just go back to being a developer. Wouldn't that be nice? Then I could just shrug things off and not really have to worry about it.
Speaker 2:Wowie wowza, I would take a pay cut to just get and stare at a monitor all day, waiting for you to figure out if I'm funded or not, as they pay me like this sounds like a dream job.
Speaker 1:In all honesty, it's I can tell you I'm funded as long as the paycheck keeps coming in yeah, that's all that matters, all you care about, absolutely so. Anyways, I think that's kind of unique to people who are doing technology in a non-primary business. That's not a technology business. I think that's pretty common. But I think there's got to be a middle ground, bruce, like middle ground between startup and enterprise, where you don't have too much process but you have just the right amount. Where you feel like you're productively getting work done but you're not ripping your hair out because you have 10 billion things to do and you're the only person to do it.
Speaker 2:There is the old model from the company I came from, and the trouble with that one is there's not enough process in place. Right Like, everyone has their roles and responsibilities. Talking about a large tech company in the enterprise, you can get things done, but you can't get things out, and I'll explain that further. So you know, if I said, hey, I'm going to go create a PowerPoint for the sales team, I could go do that and I could finish the work, but I can't actually deliver it to them because it has to go through creative team, who's going to give me 8,000 things they don't like about it. It has to go through product management team who wants to see it for some reason and they're going to tell me 8,000 things they don't like about it. And because there's no real process and there's no meeting or no plan to create this asset, it just becomes a. Well, if I put it out there, someone's going to complain. I guess I'll just address that when it comes to it or just tell them no.
Speaker 2:And I mean there is that route and I will say the nice thing about that is you can kind of blend in and you know, just do the work you want to do until you're ready to deal with the onslaught. That is, other people. But yeah, you can blend in and I think that's the polar opposite of your problem, right, there's no planning, there's no process, it's every man for themselves. We just hire roles and assume they're going to get the work done and figure it out with no definition. I think it's certainly easier. I basically your only frustration is if you want to feel accomplished. You're never going to, but you're not going to work very hard, you're not going to spend all day in meetings and losing your mind because the process is so obtuse it no longer even makes sense beyond the point of just talking about it. Right, I don't know. Truly, this is a place where I say Bruce doesn't know what's good because I've never seen good personally.
Speaker 1:It's fair and I think that's like and especially, the more you grow in an organization, the more dead bodies you start to uncover. I'm like, oh, this is the reason, like while I was a developer, why we had these frustrations. Like it's because of this thing at the top. Everything goes back to that one thing. So you start to kind of unearth you know what are the real big challenges that we're facing. I think it's like something I was thinking about Bruce is. I think it's a lot of like defining roles and responsibilities and saying, like, Bruce, this is what success looks like for you. You own these things, you go do these things, Because if that's not clear, that doesn't fix the whole process thing. But let me try to get to where I'm going here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, get there.
Speaker 1:If that's not clear, then people just start adding process that don't understand how to do it. You know what I mean? Yep, and so I think if you hire people, you have to set clear expectations and make sure that they have the right ownership. Like, let's say, you hire an engineer. It's like hey, yeah, you're engineering, but you're also responsible for doing our deployments, or something like that. No one else you are, because you are going to lead this effort, and so then it's very clear. It's like okay, bruce leads deployment.
Speaker 1:So if I have a thing that I'm trying to push through that I need to get deployed, I go to Bruce and say, hey, bruce, I need to deploy this thing, and Bruce is going to be like great, let's deploy this thing together. It's my responsibility to do this successfully with you. Let's do it. Obviously, you don't want one person as a bottleneck, but I'm using you as a reference of like that's where the process starts to unfold, but it becomes clear on who can do those things, rather than other people, kind of organizing the work and trying to get everybody together in a room to talk about it. It's like you have this role, this is your responsibility. It's very clear, and I think that's what's missing a lot of the times. We don't give the right people the right level of responsibility, so we end up just hiring more people to like, manage, process, and then people can just blend in and just do nothing and that's where it breaks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, you know, and you got me thinking about it like it's weird, because I think the more people you have, the more process you need. Like it's not just like. I do agree, roles and responsibilities are huge, because that's a problem we're dealing with right now. It's like I don't have. I mean, if you looked at my role, it's director of technical marketing. Do you know how often I direct technical marketing? Like less than 10% of my workday, but I'm working all day. So what am I doing?
Speaker 2:It's good to have those and I think when you are an established company, well past the hundred employee mark, you have to have them. But I would say, for a smaller company, it's more important that you don't have roles and responsibilities and instead you have attitudes and skill sets where you're you're hiring for a very specific yeah, as long as it's technologically oriented, I can do it. Start the task at me, I'll figure it out, we'll make it work. Like you hire the skill sets you need and you kind of just you're all in it together and there's an understanding of like, yeah, if you need this to get done, bruce is your guy, let's go talk to him, let's go figure it out, but putting a process in that's only going to slow it down. I don't know what the number is Like that's. The question is where there's got to be a tipping point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it breaks. And I mean, like I said, we're at past a hundred employees now and I'm really feeling the. I would like to have more roles and responsibilities in my, in my day-to-day. I'd like more accountability, I'd like more shared responsibility. So it does happen around that mark. Uh, we'll, we'll, you know, we'll check in in the future, as we continue to grow, on what happens next. But it's, it's an interesting math problem. I think, at the end of the day, that if you could actually put a number on it, you could probably sell a book.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely yeah to your point. There is a tipping point where, like, you get to that point and it's like okay, now everything's going to fall apart, no-transcript. So some areas probably do it really well and some areas probably do it really bad, and I don't think you're ever going to solve that at a super large company. But you got to figure out how you make your piece go well so everybody doesn't leave and hate working there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's always the challenge and you know, what's funny is like I complain and I talk about how exhausted I am, but I don't hate my job. Like there are things that I definitely know could be better, but not a day goes by that I think. Well, there were some days. There were some days I was like man, I hate my job. But you know, recently I like I said I'm working more right now than I've ever worked in my life at a job and I don't hate it.
Speaker 2:It's, it's not unsatisfying. I don't feel unfulfilled. Everything I do has value, it has right, it has direct impact to the success of the company. Like I am a crucial gear in the cogs that are the success of my startup. So, you know, I have that going for me, even though I wish I had a little bit less. You know, I wish there were some other gears around me to help turn them, turn them other gears a little easier. But it's weird, something that I can fully explain and quantify. But I know for a fact that if I was trying to get funding for people that are already paid, I'd be like, well, this is stupid, I'm just not going to do this anymore. So, like I don't know, you know it's weird, it's super weird.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah, they always say, like grass is greener, but to your point, like every situation, every place has its upsides and downsides, so you kind of have to find, you know, the best of whatever you're looking to do. Yeah, I think to that point.
Speaker 2:it's like oh good, I would love to work for you, but I would hate to be you. You know, like, just based on your description, exactly, I quit if I had to do this dance you're doing. But doing the dance underneath you sounds great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. It's to your point, like there's things I love about my job and then things I hate, and I think this is definitely one of those things that that you hate and you wish there was more responsibility on people to just be like Bruce owns this, just go to Bruce, don't talk about the thing Bruce does, bruce owns it. So, bruce, you tell us what success looks like, like that level of trust you know.
Speaker 1:I think that's something that that companies who scale up you lose it. And then they lose that trust because, to your point, like things start falling apart. So it's only natural to be like, oh shoot, you know things aren't going well. We got to implement more process, you know, because we got to be able to see it. You know, leaders got to be able to see it, we got to understand it and then we got to have an opinion on it. And then they become the bottleneck and then everything becomes, you know, process oriented and slows things down. Everything's slower to market and you're just in the same place again because you keep loss that level of trust.
Speaker 1:But I think that is like a people and skillet problem, that if you hire the right people, you set the proper expectations, I think you can be successful scaling up as long as you have the right like structure around the team and expectations for each kind of group.
Speaker 1:But I think it's that trust that gets broken and then these processes get into place and then you can't just rip them back Like at that point you're too deep, you know, and I think that's where we're starting to get to is just like we're just too deep and and the trust is lost, and now we don't trust anyone to do anything, and now everyone's like lost the autonomy that you have to feel like I'm the one who does this. I feel empowered, I feel, you know, valued, because I know my work is good. Now it's just like, well, everyone's got an opinion on things and you know I could do work, but I'm going to get shut down because there is no funding for that thing. Or you know I could do work, but then they're going to have a thousand opinions on it, like you mentioned earlier on, you know every group has to kind of take a look at it. So, man, it's a tough problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think with like this episode perfectly distills you can't escape corporate. Yeah, no matter where you are, there is going to be something about your business that does not work, and I don't think unless you're working for yourself and you are a company of one.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it's possible for it to work for you. Yeah, it's a certain number. Don't know what that number is, but it's got to be like 50-ish when things start to be like, okay, you can't just have a couple people making decisions anymore, like we gotta have some process around but, man, yeah, that breaking point, you'll, you'll feel it, you'll feel it and you guys probably know.
Speaker 2:You know, based on what we're talking about, you're like oh yeah, I started I see these issues because I've seen it every place that it worked and we haven't even talked about how this impacts the CAC, which I don't think we haven't said CAC in the last few episodes, which is a crying shame which stands for Culture, autonomy, compensation and Challenge, although Compensation's an offset, so you know it's more like CAC with a little extra C on the multiplier. Like I mean, all these factors influence your actual employment satisfaction and we haven't even talked about that. From like a, how does this make you feel from an autonomy perspective? What does this do to your corporate culture? You know, how does this introduce learning opportunities for you or your, your mental state and like how fresh you are? It's, it's wild and there's so many factors. But the one thing I do know is that if you put human beings in a room together, one person is going to muck it up and make it a meeting, and it could have been an email.
Speaker 1:I'm Bruce, just did the outro right there. I think you've trained me. I think you've trained me. Every single time you use, like some sort of a corporate saying I just feel like the outro is coming.
Speaker 2:You didn't see that coming, did you? I gotcha, I gotcha. It was good, it was so good, it's natural right.
Speaker 1:I lost my identity. It was that good.
Speaker 2:I know you really did. You pretended to be me for a second. You wanted to jump into my madness.
Speaker 1:But yeah, you know I don't think we got to any you know hard conclusion, but I think it's the realization, it's good. It's good to realize these things and to understand why they're happening rather than just be frustrated not understand it. And I think having these different perspectives like people probably think it's relatable and we'll just have to keep collaborating on, like, how do we at least make it better to your point on the things you can control, like alex was telling us.
Speaker 2:We hear stories in the discord. You know, the individual contributor and squid boy are perfect examples. They both have posted either topic ideas or things they're running into in their work life and I'm like dang, sometimes I have it pretty good, you know like it's interesting. That's why you got to get in the discord again. Just go to our show notes, do all the links, join the, join the cord it's. There are so many examples of how to do it wrong and so few on how to do it right, and I think that's what we're all working towards is sharing stories on how we can potentially make it just a little bit more tolerable for all of us. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, putting like a brain trust together like we have in our community. You're going to get different opinions on what you can do. Some might not be possible, some might be possible because we don't have all the contacts, but I think we're taking good tips back and it's helping people. And, to your point, I think that's what it's all about.
Speaker 2:So let us know what works for you. Join the Discord. Please give us, I think, like this one. I'm so curious, what the audience thinks Like, what is? Is your process good? Are you at a startup? Are you at a mid-sized business, a large enterprise Like? What works, what doesn't, how do we make it better? Because this is clearly not going to just come from Clark and I.
Speaker 1:Agreed. Well, good stuff, you at least. Let me feel a little better, feel a little lighter. Maybe it's those carbs burning off?
Speaker 2:Yep, it truly is. That's what happens when you ditch carbs. I had ravioli for lunch today. I ate ravioli on a meeting and made people watch. Usually I'll turn off my camera, but I was so pissed that I had literally eight straight hours of meetings. I'm like you know what I'm going to eat this kind of disgustingly on camera and that's. That's the punishment for those who were on that meeting, and whether they're listening to this podcast or not, that's that's up to them. You, that's up to them.
Speaker 1:You still have tomato sauce on your face, don't you?
Speaker 2:Oh, I absolutely do?
Speaker 1:I was rubbing them.
Speaker 2:It was cheese ravioli, so I was rubbing them right around my mouth, enjoying the cheesiness, the Alfredo of the ravioli, oh, so delicious.
Speaker 1:This is an HR violation. I want you to know. I hope you get reported.
Speaker 2:I am a quarter Italian. I'll have you know I'm allowed to do the stereotype. Okay, I'm allowed, that's enough, you can't do it.
Speaker 1:But I can do it no.
Speaker 2:That's a spicy meatball. You try that and I will shut you down. I will report you.
Speaker 1:Listen, our HR department, which is me. I would just say you know, it's fine, he can do whatever he wants.
Speaker 2:It's a me a Mario, you know. You know what I'm saying. You're thinking of the fact that like a japanese company creates like the most recognizable video game character of all time, and it's an italian stereotype like what is that plumber? My people have been reduced to chubby little italian plumber, and that he's not even a good plumber. He's literally never plumbed anything. He jumps into pipes. That's terrible plumbing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like what is going on. Why would he jump into a? Yeah, it makes no sense.
Speaker 2:But yeah, you guys really missed an opportunity. Just you know. Fyi, these are the things I deal with on a day-to-day basis. People see me on the street. They're like oh, you got a little dinosaur, come out of your green egg. They point and they laugh at me. We're getting cancelled. What is your mustache? What is your?
Speaker 1:definitive mustache. I feel like you need to do a whole episode like this.
Speaker 2:That would be impressive. You know I'm pinching my hands every time I do that. You have to, you have to. Anyway, we don't have a meme this week, we don't, we just this week, we don't, we just don't. So we're not playing. What Do you Meme? But you could help. If you want to play the game, join the Discord. Put a meme in there that summarizes something in the episode. It's tangentially related, or it could be complete and utter nonsense. It doesn't matter. I'm going to make Clark read it whatever it is, so put it in there. We appreciate it, we do. We've already told you how to get in here. What other things can they get access to if they follow that link? Tree Clark.
Speaker 1:You hit that link tree, it's your right into discord. As we said, you can follow us on social. Are we still doing LinkedIn posts?
Speaker 2:Are those happening? I've been doing LinkedIn posts. I need to attribute them to corporate strategy, but I mean you can always find me on LinkedIn. It's not hard. Follow the breadcrumbs.
Speaker 1:I have not let go of my personality yet. So it's good, boy said it a million subs and we're committed. We got a while to go, but it's coming. What else can you do? You can share. Share with your friends. If you're talking and you're struggling through, you know the situations in your business jump in and share. We want to know. Share the, share, the episode, let us know what you think and we have a newsletter. So if you go to corporate strategybiz, that's corporate strategy dot b-i-z.
Speaker 2:Enter your email and you can be the first to know when these episodes go live you could do that, or you can just go to link tree and get the direct jump to the website you could jump right there yeah, uh, you know.
Speaker 2:Hey again, if you like it, share it with your friends. Like cl Clark said, if you don't have friends, I'm sorry, I understand that feeling. You can always leave us a five-star review. That would be great as well. And if doing that is too much work, well, there's always the monetary option in that link tree is a support the show link. You can give us a little ched and, trust me, a little ched goes a long way. This is a completely host funded podcast and this is a completely host-funded podcast and yes, host was singular, I'll let you guess which one. We appreciate your listenership, as always. You're great, you're wonderful people. We love that. You continue to come back to this, week after week, truly, year after year. Now We've been doing this a lot. Yeah, it's been a few years. It's been a journey. Thanks, as always, for listening. Just remember, this is like herding cats I'm Bruce and I'm Clark and you're on mute. We'll touch base with you next week.
