Jul 27, 2026
I used to wonder why can’t big companies get good at any X they want? You just hire someone demonstratively good at X and give them power. But no.
If it’s an existing org you have to transform recruiting/selection, culture, compensation, get ppl who won’t adapt to leave, learn new habits/processes, etc. Doing that with even ~3k ppl is a five year adventure. The org will rebel, your conviction will falter, and your new leader who’s good at X will get frustrated and quit.
You can have them build a totally new division, but still no. The advantage of a big company is the scale of infra, and this new division will need to hook into it. Distribution, finance, security, compliance, etc. All this infra is built for a completely different world, and the ppl there will have absolutely no idea how to deal with your new division. Massive impedance mismatch, and again ppl will get frustrated and leave.
Plus all of this causes a ton of damage and now you’re putting your revenue streams at risk, which makes people very nervous and is crazily hard to follow through on for any sustained period of time.
(The asterisk of course is that popular founders can do it if they have the will and the social capital, but these transformations are hard enough that even w/ founders it’s surprisingly rare.)