Joel: How Hard Could It Be?: Lessons I Learned in the Army

Great read. When managers lose touch with workers, morale suffers.

I would even take it a step further. When managers lose touch with workers, they lose touch with HOW the business operates. They know the WHAT, but not the HOW. I see it over and over. Maybe they forgot how to do it, maybe things have changed, maybe they never even knew. But as soon as a manager tells you HOW to do something and you know he's wrong, time to plan your next move. It's inevitable.

As an independently wealthy individual, due to family inheritance and MS stock options, even before starting Fog Creek, I don't think Joel is in much of a position of authority to discuss the average corporate employee's economic perspective.

This article would be far more credible were he not posting on his $10k Sonus home audio system and written by someone who had overcome real economic hardships in life. Fog Creek's first offices were in his grandmother's New York brownstone. Most start-ups in New York can barely afford a closet-sized office.

Excellent piece. He could not be more right.

I think there is more in that story than was argued. The equity structure in startups, in my opinion, could see a change similar to what is happening to venture financing.

Here is the current problem: if you hire an employee, and give him .1% of the company, what happens if that employee's actions significantly increase the value of the company? Maybe this person makes a key innovation that pushes the product over the chasm. That .1% looks like an unfair reward. In general, the greater the contribution, the worse the equity allocation becomes.

My guess is that market forces will find a way to solve this problem. Companies that can give employees variable equity based on contribution will find it easier to attract top talent. Legally, I have no idea how this would work, but the market forces are there nonetheless.

A personal pet peeve: I can't stand it when the bosses bring outside people around, give them a tour, point at you, explain what you do, and never once mention 1) that there would be visitors, or 2) who the heck they are. It's degrading.

How hard can it be? Surprisingly not that much. My time in the Marine Corps was similar. Training-wise it's all pre-planned by officers for staff NCOs to execute but when push comes to shove all that gets thrown out of the window at a minute's notice. Because of the escalation of the war in Iraq our training schedule was "lost" and we began an accelerated infantry course whereby all weekends were taken out, humps amped up, and classes extended.

What's always been amazing to me has been the ability for people to adapt. The weak ones weeded out from boot camp end up in infantry training capable of handling quite a lot of stress and workload. You'll _feel_ tired but when the entire platoon has been asked to practice drills for another hour you simply push through and do it.

When boots are on the ground, however, it's not so similar. There's so much downtime in between missions. And in time that's when accidents happen and people get careless. Maintaining discipline and order has paramount and that's when the hours and days of reflex drilling snap to and you stay alive for yet another day.

I think the important lesson here is the sense of ownership, whether emotional (passionate) and/or financial (founder), that someone who works at a (usually startup) company feels. If you're not invested in something, what do you care about making things better or the symbolic act of saving some of the startup funds by traveling on the cheap?

What is the legal status of serving in a foreign army?

At any rate, if you read accounts of the various wars Israel has been in, one of the deciding factors has always been the sloppy preparation on the Arabs' side.