A 75% shot at never having to take goddamn orders, on the other hand, is something I'd do things I can't put in print for. That's what I'm aiming for. I don't want to be some despot or extortionist telling others what to do, nor do I want to be told what to do. I want to have the opportunity to lead, if others will follow, without entitled and artificially empowered jackasses (i.e. typical corporate management) getting in the way of that.
I'd say the main difference is that an entrepreneur "shifts resources from areas of low productivity to high productivity", while an engineer comes up with the most viable technical solution to a problem. In other words, an entrepreneur's job description includes opportunity costs, while an engineer's job description leaves that for an executive or product manager to worry about. Profit is a natural consequence of that, since if you are successfully shifting resources from areas of low productivity to high productivity, the difference can be captured as profit.
This piece did touch on the real issue startup founders have with big companies - but only touched on it.
The issue is not compensation, the issue is an inability to understand how to traverse the system in order to execute and achieve what you want (and that can include 10x returns).
This ability is about understanding how to identify the problems/opportunities within a business that need to be addressed that nobody is attending to. This ability has nothing to do with office politics.
I've seen several people who have managed this. In fact I've seen 5x more people achieve amazing things in big organisations than I have seen entrepreneurs truly succeed. People within big organisations can also make it a non-binary choice - working with and often working on companies outside their 'big company' (I spend ~1 day a week working/advising some amazing startups as part of my job).
The inability to execute in a big company may not simply be due to oversight by entrepreneurs - it may be that the type of person that is successful at one cannot be successful at the other. But I don't believe that's true all of the time, and I find it shortsighted that so many successful entrepreneurs seem to see it as the truth.
My experience is that corporations contain systems which startup founders would absolutely love to utilise given the chance.
I have built technology within organisations that within months is in use by multiple clients who have $1B+ market caps. I've seen projects funded with higher risk profiles than most VC's would tolerate because those funding it truly believed it was a good idea.
The idea that corporate systems are something that should be tolerated vs. something that can be navigated and leveraged for a positive outcome is, as I said above, terribly shortsighted.
There is a very small subset of problems, where, needing some very specific resources for my project, it is more logical to seek them from within an existing corporation, ie joining it, than from myself or the market.
I could live with the idea of japanese-style corporation, where loyalty goes both ways. It would be logical then to accept the idea of sharing in a system where others will share with you. Unless you have some serious deadweight, sharing would reduce the variance of your profits, but not the mean.
But if employees are resources to be used and discarded, companies are likewise resources to be used and discarded.
Basically, if the social contract is uphold, it is logical to share with others, knowing they will too share with you.
For a game theory analogy, when one breaks one's word, cooperation is no longer the best strategy, but defection.
The rise of entrepreneurship may have some link with the end of the traditional corporation, where one had a job until retirement, put a real effort in it, and was appropriately compensated.
IMO there are very few companies even in Japan who are truly like this anymore.
Yet even if I like the concept of workers being compensated at their marginal productivity, it's a sad thing this choice will no longer exist for most of the people who are now graduating, and that entrepreneurship becomes a choice by default.
Diversity (as in having many choices - to work for a big company or for yourself) usually is a good thing.
Of course, you may still work for a big company, but if you know you are to be poorly treated anyway, while bother doing more than the bare minimum? If you have a good idea, why bother sharing its profits?
>Corporate politics and bureaucracy are just another obstacle that can be learned and overcome
You can learn to navigate politics and bureaucracy, but you can't overcome them without becoming management - in which case your hands are generally bound to the same metrics that your previous bosses were as well.
If it takes 4 levels of review just to see if my project can be begun or to build a team to begin even MVP development, I don't want to be near that. It's too slow, access to resources, if available, are so tightly scrutinized that if there is any failure you can kiss future chances goodbye, attaching new hardware or software is a nightmare because the systems need to all be compatible on this network etc.. etc.. all make the large corporately integrated system terrible for the fast paced error>revise>error>revise cycle that entrepreneurs want.
This is why the Valve model of flat organization is so appealing to many and spoken about in terms like "future of the workplace."
It really is that simple. You can even find some small companies that entrepreneurs wouldn't last a second in, because they have this same mindset.
The point at any company where getting things done becomes less important than making sure people (and by induction, the company) follow orders or don't screw up, is the point at which entrepreneurial minded folks can no longer thrive at said company.
As far as I can tell the dominating decision factor for everyone I know who runs their own company seems to be "freedom from management". That's why people work for years at an expected value of a below-market wage. That's why people leave a year into their four year vesting schedule post-acquisition.
In the anglo corporate culture there is little to no room for co-determination; and I would wager that's especially grating to those in the position to do something about it.
Your mileage may vary if you're on the brink of collapse, of course.
Larger companies only innovate when their competitors do, they have obligations to meet (stockholders, customers, management executives) and doing anything different or trying anything new is a risk that could jeopardise profits of a company. Entrepreneurs who start out with nothing really don't have as much to lose as a company does, two different paths and ways of thinking.
Entrepreneurs feel to their bones that their dreams are too great a part of themselves to so totally put under other people's control. And they don't believe anybody but themselves can truly understand their dream or pull it off.
The author appears to have a strange definition of "entrepreneur" which is some kind of personality trait and not a business role. I suppose he must be using the word "entrepreneur" as shorthand for "person with high tolerance for the risks involved in starting a new business", i.e. a potential entrepreneur.
Steve Jobs. He had full control over Apple and could tell it to build whatever he wanted. He worked for a big company. From what I've read, he was happy working there.
Larry Page and Sergey Brin, they seem happy working for a big company.
Larry Ellison loves working for Oracle. I have yet to hear any disappointment from him about working for a big company.
All in all, I think many entrepreneurs would love working at big companies - as long as they are in the top 1% of the company who have control over the rest.
It's not easy though. My number one issue is inefficiency. My number two is politics. But I wish I could make it work as within a company like IBM I have the potential to do things that I couldn't have dreamt to do in my own company.
First, it's worth pointing out that arbitrageurs seek to exploit opportunities that are, in theory, risk free. So to suggest that entrepreneurs are looking to "arbitrage the system" while at the same time shooting for the stars when the odds are "slim" is a curious and entirely inconsistent argument.
That notwithstanding, if you look beyond a small group of 20-something entrepreneurs in the Bay Area, you'll find plenty of people who have started businesses who worked at mid-sized and large companies for years. For some, the knowledge and experience gained allowed them to spot the opportunity they're pursuing. For many, the relationships established and good money earned during those years of service put them in a position to pursue the opportunity with far less risk than they would have taken on if they tried to start a company before they had domain expertise, a professional network and financial resources of their own.
It's sad to see folks reduce entrepreneurship to short-sighted risk-taking by individuals who somehow can't or won't function in an organization that isn't their own. Smart entrepreneurs take calculated risks, start businesses in industries they know and don't begin their journeys with a few thousand dollars in the bank.
You will find this by the dump-truck full at BigCo.
Consider that many entrepreneurs grow out of even their own company - their own baby - when it moves from startup phases to an x year old mature company.
Working at a big company makes sense if you can get allocated to a great project, and it's hard to tell from outside what the good projects are. Otherwise, you have to deal with red tape and approvals and resource requests and headcount issues that will eat your soul and turn you just as lazy as the middle managers who create such processes (who do so because they've become demoralized and lazy and realize that dysfunctional bureaucracy, like undocumented code, provides job security).
Sorry, it is about the money. It has always been about the money.
As I get older, I realize nothing apart from money even matters.
Way too many people start a company these days because they want "Founder", "CTO" or "CEO" title... rather than because they see a real need and want to solve a real problem.
The fact that anybody with Google or Stanford on their resume can raise a $500K or $750K seed round doesn't help things either.
Working at any company always starts out well. I have so many ideas, thoughts, and energy I want to put into my position. For me, it always fades after about 6 months.
The politics, managers, ridiculous ideas that I'm forced develop, long hours that could have easily been prevented with better practices usually ruin it for me.
