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Managing your company to death

Great subject. Heated discussion.

Slashdot: “"This weeks I, Cringely is a frightening monologue on the plight of over-managed companies: VC’s and professional managers who are looking to make a quick buck, even if it consigns the company to the rubbish heap. He praises companies like Oracle and Sun because the founder still runs the company, and is in touch with the core of the buisiness. He also makes an interesting aside about the founders of the Canadian company, Research in Motion (makers of the Blackberry) and their personal contribution of $120 million for research into particle physics, to illustrate what happens when technical expertise and business success can lead to.”

A very timely article! Everyday, I seem to wonder how much management is enough? Before coming to US, I had worked in Indian companies with very lean management that had close touch with what is happening on the ground and the vision kept flowing down from the top management - a good part of which was comprised by founders.

I guess when a company becomes successful, career managers start getting into it. This usually push the guys who worked to make it successful to the background, there by cutting off motivation. Motivation, IMO, simply needs to flow up. You can’t enforce it to flow down from the top management.

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