The startup advantage is mainly about trust. You can utilize people who have 2x or 5x your knowledge in an area if you can trust them. However... explaining/convincing/selling something well requires 10x the knowledge.
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Most startups don't trust their experts yet also can't afford the 10x-ers since they're at the large companies making $$$. So what happens is either founders or the early employees end up bottlenecking the output of the team.
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Most commonly, an expert in one domain automatically imposes him or herself on another domain b/c of "wearing multiple hats". This bottlenecks the entire company due to creation of these weak links.
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The grander the vision, the more this problem is pronounced. The more niche the service/product, the less this is a problem. Smaller chains are more robust to the weak link effect.
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If you've ever play a multiplayer online battle game like a Moba you'll have seen a peculiar effect. It's VERY hard to know who is doing well and who is doing bad. (Especially support characters) There's only the super coarse metric of 'number of kills' or 'damage output'
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In companies and teams there's a similar effect. Whenever something bad happens, it's easy to rationalize it as someone else's fault. Whenever something good happens, it's easy to see how you 'helped' in some way.
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A 10x-er can explain at a high level what is happening but w/o this ability it's very easy to over-promote and under-utilize people. You can end up having idiots with too much power and qualified people ending up demoralized and cynical.
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Trust is easier at smaller scales but a small size doesn't automatically create trust. Many families for example are broken in many ways.
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The 'rocket fuel' boost for many small companies(or teams) is actually a form of pseudo-trust. It's trust that comes from control. I can trust my kitchen knife and utilize it fairly well precisely b/c it's a dumb piece of steel. It's more difficult to trust Siri or Alexa
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This gap exists because people who start startups tend to be more experienced. (Or at least demonstrate the surface confidence that indicates experience.) E.g. imagine if Steve Jobs stops by your office to chat. Things *move* b/c you bypass trust rituals like meetings & docs.
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"Ah the divine heavenly emperor. I humbly offer my sword to you in servitude." vs "I'm gonna need 10 pages of evidence and for you to rationalize every small thing with scientific studies."
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There's a limit to controlling human beings though. Single founders with an army of contractors don't tend to create unicorn companies. Protocols and lawyers allow frictionless transactions, not frictionless relationships. And power is mostly in the relationship.
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End of conversation
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