Whilst I mostly agree, I think this is overstated.
For example at Google, whilst a lot of the technical decisions are made lower down, the strategic decisions about which markets to really focus on are made at much higher levels. Around a quarter of Googles workforce is in cloud—an area where they’re still losing money! A decision to make that kind of investment in such a competitive market is driven by grand master plans at the C level, not by organic decision making further down.
At the scale of the startup, even the most fantastic product wont make money if it doesn’t have a suitable target audience. The job of the high level employees at the startup is to identify which target audience makes the most economic sense to target, and tell the lower level employees to focus on the needs of those customers over the needs of others. They certainly shouldn’t micromanage how this is done, but it’s important that everyone on the company is clear on what the strategic focus is, and what’s peripheral.
Whilst I mostly agree, I think this is overstated.
For example at Google, whilst a lot of the technical decisions are made lower down, the strategic decisions about which markets to really focus on are made at much higher levels. Around a quarter of Googles workforce is in cloud—an area where they’re still losing money! A decision to make that kind of investment in such a competitive market is driven by grand master plans at the C level, not by organic decision making further down.
At the scale of the startup, even the most fantastic product wont make money if it doesn’t have a suitable target audience. The job of the high level employees at the startup is to identify which target audience makes the most economic sense to target, and tell the lower level employees to focus on the needs of those customers over the needs of others. They certainly shouldn’t micromanage how this is done, but it’s important that everyone on the company is clear on what the strategic focus is, and what’s peripheral.