Software as a profession sucks, a rant.

[Bill Bogstad]

On Fri, Oct 23, 2009 at 1:17 PM, Richard Pieri <richard.pieri-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> On Oct 23, 2009, at 12:43 PM, Bill Bogstad wrote:
>> It doesn't actually say that large companies don't innovate.  It
>> suggests that they tend to only innovate in ways that are desired by
>> their largest customers.  As a secondary effect, since the largest
>> customers are often large companies which also
>
> And yet, today, large companies are some of the biggest innovators in
> their respective areas.  You just never see most of it because it
> doesn't make slashdot's headlines.  At the same time, some of the
> smallest companies do nothing but buy patents and extort (or litigate)
> royalties for them.  You can't look at the size of a company as a
> benchmark for innovation and fun vs. depressing monotony.  To the
> contrary, a large company probably has many small operating units.
> Some of those may be crushingly monotonous; others dynamic and
> innovative and fun and challenging.

The book wasn't written by reading Slashdot.  It was the outgrowth of
a Ph.D thesis in how companies react to opportunities to innovate.
To the extent that sociology, economics, business has rules (more like
probabilities) this appears to be one of them.
Hell, even much of what we consider the 'rules of physics' are often
just probabilities.  My understanding is that quantum mechanics says
that lots of really weird things are possible, they are just VERY VERY
VERY improbable.

>
>> do the same you end up with a decided lack of innovation in large
>> companies.   If a company has revenue of $10 milllion dollars a day,
>> then it's not worth a senior manager's time to approve a change that
>> will save the company $100,000.  And
>> the answer will be NO if you can't prove that your change won't
>> negatively affect that $10 million a day revenue stream.
>
> That has absolutely nothing to do with the company's size.  That's
> senior management.  Like I said the first time.

I disagree.  Senior management has only so many minutes to spend every
day.   At a large company, $100,000 decisions are just not worth their
time to analyze.  This is no different from the fact that most people
don't spend lots of time optimizing where theybuy gas for their car.
The principle remains the same only the scale has changed.

For various reasons, innovation usually starts small (not applicable
to a large customer base, uncertainty  about risks/rewards) and
therefore never gets the go ahead within a large organization.  The
size of the company inherently forces only 'big things' to be given
the green light at the highest level.  A really good company might
allow more autonomy at lower levels then a bad one, but they still
aren't going to be as flexible as a small one.  They can't afford to
risk their large revenue streams.  Particularly when it comes to
anything viewable to the external world.  It seems to be the received
wisdom from marketing (also not a rule/just probabilities) that
providing too many competing products via the sames sales channel just
results in customer confusion and your competitor ends up making the
sale.  Personally, I like 'high information'; but from watching
the rest of my family/friends/acquaintances; I appear to in the
minority.  (And thus not a good candidate for MegaCorps
next 5% growth target.  There just aren't enough of me.)

Bill Bogstad