Comment by fuzzfactor
17 hours ago
That company not only failed to "institutionalize" the specialized knowledge they had, once they became big enough for bureaucracy to self-assemble they ended up institutionalizing the concept of not valuing things that led to initial success.
This is correct. Senior management operated intelligently, creatively, benevolently as far as that goes, but intentionally distant. With every management layer tasked with keeping trains running on time, and not making demands on their attention.
Despite the majority of the company's early successes, which still defined the company, coming from individual creatives.
Then the whole company completely missed a major industry wave they had been perfectly built and positioned to ride. My product's last dozen+ years of struggle/stagnation, despite delivering modest progress where I still could, was not a small aspect of that epic whiff.