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As someone that joined a legacy company 6 months ago to weather the recession, I agree with the majority of what you said. You are talking entrenched interests in keeping the way things are. Especially those that have worked in the company for years. They don't want change, because change would threaten their position.

It has been very difficult to adjust to the culture personally. On the one hand, I hardly have any work. On the other, I am struggling with the meaningless work assigned to me. The tech is abysmal, but given the culture, it's not worth dying on this hill. Countless people have tried before. You can accept it or move on.

I am staying around because of the economic environment. The upside is that I am free to work on my side projects because my IP clause is strictly related to work only. I don't expect much else because it can't offer any other than words.

I wish I would have read some of this commentary 15 years sooner.

> The reason their tech is so shit is not because of lack of skills or money but because a lot of existing money depends on nobody having those skills.

Are you summarizing what you wrote earlier in your comment? Or generalizing? I’m not following and/or skeptical of this characterization.

In my experience with large organizations, the lacking quality of technology tends to result from:

- hiring outsiders (often contractors but sometimes corporate IT teams) to build things

- the outsiders have little incentive to build it well to solve long term problems

- the managers hiring the outsiders don’t really understand the technology domain well enough

Put another way:

A. the people who build software “solutions” for internal business processes may be the only ones who appreciate how complex and messed up these processes are.

B. If they are not compensated nor respected properly, and don’t stick around for future iterations, how is the next version going to be significantly better?

I'd summarize it by saying that the reason behind technology generally lacking in large companies is a result of mismatched incentives.

In large, established companies, a lot of processes that could nowadays be replaced by software and automation are done by people. Some of those people are senior employees and/or have a manager whose standing within the company depends on the number of people they manage. Some of those people may even have "money under the table" relationships with vendors of subpar solutions that will be jeopardized by a new in-house solution being developed.

The feedback loop in large companies is long enough that individual employees can make decisions that are beneficial to their individual situation at the expense of the firm's profitability, but that fact will only come to light in so long that by that time they will have moved on or retired.

Therefore the reasons behind tech being shit at large companies is typically a blend of:

* nobody within the company having enough expertise to truly vet the people/consultancies they're hiring, resulting in lackluster results

* people within the company know (or eventually realize) that the people they've hired are competent enough to put them out of a job, so they give them intentionally-sabotaged instructions to deliver something subpar as to protect their job

* the working conditions, pay and/or working conditions within the company are so bad that nobody competent enough to make a change walks through the door, so the only people that do walk through that door wouldn't be able to make an improvement even if there were no other roadblocks in the way.

In general, in my opinion, it is a combination of all these factors. Incompetence of the incoming talent is a big one (that benefits the people relying on the status-quo), but should there be a breakthrough employee that can actually make a difference, he will be stopped because of the other reasons (otherwise he'd put many people in a tricky situation and they don't want that).

This has been my experience as well and it took a (very long) burnout + a resignation to understand.

"the boundaries you are being given (explicitly - or implicitly as in "why hasn't this been done before? this seems so easy") are there for a reason and are there to protect some position(s)"

Do you mean "positions" as in roles or jobs? If so, why would it be a goal for the company to keep people around that can be automated away? That seems opposite to their duty to their shareholders. Am I misunderstanding or missing something?

> why would it be a goal for the company to keep people around that can be automated away

The explanation that I always use is that in a small company, the feedback loop all the way up to the CEO and/or investors is short enough that any misbehaviour from employees for their own interests will be easily detected, so it doesn't happen.

In a big enough hierarchy however, the feedback loop can span decades of real-world results, so middle-managers can make decisions that are detrimental to the long-term performance of the firm but gain them short-term results (from which bonuses and promotions are derived), not to mention plausible-deniable "money under the table" that is still technically a "bonus" though off-the-company-books. By the time the long-term impact of the decision comes to light (if it ever does), they would've long since moved on or even retired.

Therefore, in a big company, you need to keep in mind that people may not act within the firm's best interests if they know they can get away with it, and you may merely be a pawn within their chessboard - in which case they're happy to pay you to keep you around but you need to move exactly as they say and not rock the boat too much.

And I'm not even talking of outright blackmail where multiple high-standing people within the company could have dirt on each other (or at least pretend to?) and thus cooperate with each other because any defection means mutually-assured destruction.

Aside from the existing system having inertia, there may be regulatory or legal requirements protecting certain teams and processes that make automation trickier. Even if this isn't the case, the current system works, and so improvements need to be weighed against that; most likely, it's a long-term, strategic shift to a new process, because large organizations rely on processes to shield themselves from the legal system. Finally, any individual coming in and waging civil war on other departments within the organization is always bad, even if they're right in the long run.

> Finally, any individual coming in and waging civil war on other departments within the organization is always bad, even if they're right in the long run.

Yes, an individual going alone against entrenched powers will feel an unpleasant burning sensation.

Still, at times an entire department is already looked at as a black sheep. A key hire can just provide “cover” for what most people in the organization already know. The new blood might not tread lightly. It can work, if the attack dog has cover and support. This has the added benefit of providing a ready to burn scapegoat if the “excision” / reorg doesn’t go well.

P.S. Need more mixed metaphors?

Out of curiosity, given that you appear to have more experience in this domain:

1) if there is a regulatory reason behind "protectionism" of some employees/departments, why not outright announce it to the rest of the company?

2) if you're saying that someone that wages "civil war" against other employees is bad regardless of their motivations, what would be your alternative for someone genuinely knowing the best long-term outcome for the company but otherwise lacking the necessary connections to play "puppet master" behind the scenes or pass money under the table to influence the right people?

You are missing that shareholder value drives very little corporate decision-making below the C-suite. A director benefits the more people report to them. They don’t necessarily care whether any of them are doing anything as long as they can slingshot to their next job before it all implodes. But nothing ever implodes, it just reorgs.

Having been in a director position myself, financials always mattered. Sure having more folks to execute on plans is great, but ultimately there'd be pressure to grow revenue and revenue/employee.

> "Too much" tech will actually be seen as a threat and you may encounter roadblocks, because the tech you're proposing is too good and will threaten some entrenched positions or entire departments within the company.

In consulting work I find myself asking the question, “is this limitation technical or is it a business decision?” If it’s technical I can offer solutions or workarounds, but if it’s to avoid an entry level product eating the high end version’s lunch, I won’t waste my time.

I’m curious about your firing experience. What boundary did you push and was it explicitly stated or was it implicit?

In my case it was very implicit and it's only in retrospect after many years in other companies that I can realize it. To be clear, this was a textbook "growth & engagement" startup, but my experience nowadays suggests the same would apply in legacy, conventional companies too.

The firing itself was over a stupid misstep outside of my domain of expertise and also wasn't of any consequence to the business, which IMO means that it should outright be forgiven or at the very least downgraded to a formal warning considering I was otherwise on good standing (or at least I thought so).

The problem was that I was questioning and pushing back against a supposedly "technical" decision that even after 5 more years of expertise still feels correct - however by now I realized that the whole reason behind the decision wasn't a technical one but to farm out business to some high-up person's friends' company back in their home country. Tech-wise, this decision wouldn't have improved the supposedly-claimed problem (according to tickets and meetings) one bit.

The mistake I did was just a convenient excuse for a firing, but overall it worked out both ways - they eventually got a lucky exit (and I'm sure whoever was involved in that scheme also benefited even earlier regardless of the exit), and I got to learn a decent lesson about office politics to carry with me in my freelancing career (I didn't have any stock options or any good money on the line anyway, so no hard feelings and I still got a good reference).

Great comment.