While I was searching the web last week, I found a blog kept by a programmer that talked about that he is taking 3 books on his honeymoon: 2 programming books and mine! He had just left his job at a large company to join a 5 person one.
I posted a message on his blog to thank him for taking my book on his honeymoon. He wrote me back and said:
I was surprised this morning to find a comment from you (the author of a book I just finished) in my blog. Small world!
Small Web world indeed.
He writes further in his blog. I love the part he pulls from the book.
On my honeymoon I read You need to be a little Crazy: the truth about starting and growing your own business by Barry Moltz. (Great book for a plane ride!). I found it really interesting that Barry got his career started at IBM (big multi-national company). I have known for awhile that getting promoted and moving up the ladder in a large company may or may not really mean you know your stuff, but never could articulate it. Barry puts it this way:
“At IBM, I did not realize that my success was largely attributeable to my being able to successfully adapt to the artificial system that a large coporation like IBM can set up and maintain from within. Promotions and awards were distributed. I worked hard, and I did get some of them. This was not recognition of my achievement from the maket, rather it was recognition from members of a hierarchical management team. This is neither good nor bad, it is just the way large corporations work.“ – page 41
When I read that paragraph, I thought “wow, that is it! that is exactly how it is!“. My mental summaraization of what Barry was saying is this: You may work hard (or not), get promoted and move up the ladder in a large company, but if you have to answer to the market (say a layoff or something), you might come to realize that the artificial system (company ecosystem) in your large company was much like the Matrix!!! Maybe it is just a system designed to make human beings into just another happy cog in the machine ;) The things that protect you from the real world (the market) create a lot of risk for you if that protection is ever taken away
