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points by diskzero 3 days ago | 0 comments

I experienced these environments first hand, not at NeXT, but at NeXT adjacents like Apple, General Magic, Danger, Be, Eazel and other startups. What I miss is the shared vision and energy put into a project with a team of people who unify to accomplish a very difficult goal. You could seemingly tackle these projects with a small group and make great progress. We had building blocks, but many of the other fundamental pieces needed simply didn’t exist. You felt like you were constantly discovering something new.

Maybe this is how early Google people felt or how early OpenAI felt. I don’t know. They do have an embarrassment of riches, but I am sure they also felt they were doing great things.

I also worked at modern-ish Amazon and it sucked. Horrible office environment, tedious tasks and overall sense of oppression is what I felt. It is such a huge company, maybe there were pockets of joy.

My current job is back working on hardware products and the software that runs in them. It isn’t quite the same feel as 80s computer companies, but some of the joy is there.

[–] voncheese 3 days ago

I'm old enough to have experience in alot of great office environments (and some terrible ones too), the good for sure outweighs the bad!

Your comment about Amazon sucking resonated as I recently talked with them about a job, but walked away being super disinterested. I do not think this is an Amazon problem (fwiw, I worked at Microsoft for a super long time), I think it's a "problem" with the massive success of technology in the world.

Back in the day of NeXT, Be and early Apple, it was alot about building something cool and fun and a less about the huge money that could/would be made. Now the whole world relies on technology and there is so much money that the environment of a tech company is alot more about the business than it is the technology.

I personally don't think thats necessarily a bad thing, it's just evolution of the technology business.

[–] hylaride 3 days ago

> I personally don't think thats necessarily a bad thing, it's just evolution of the technology business.

I think this is how best to sum it up. We (tech workers) had agency back in the day as we were on the vanguard of something new and there were no best practices in how to manage us. These companies were run by and for tech workers. Today, you'd have all sorts of "stakeholders" telling us what to do. Product managers, various management and/or work tracking styles (agile, KPIs, etc), and top-down oversight.

At my previous job, I was literally dressed down for doing work on the side to resolve some technical debt that was hindering other work because it wasn't properly pointed. Didn't matter that I did it on my own time - showing initiative beyond the current story board was a no-no. How is one supposed to be happy in such an environment?

[–] andrekandre 2 days ago

  > work tracking styles (agile, KPIs, etc)

the best de-motivators ever invented for anyone with drive and ambition to make anything great

[–] no_wizard 3 days ago

I feel like the MBA types spoiled everything

Venture Capital, working in the office, how companies operate.

The 1980s and 1990s were largely a scene of people who wanted to be there and were less concerned with KPIs and raising money.

They were engineers or designers first for the most part.

Today’s world one of the first things that happen to any startup is an MBA rolls in to “help get it off the ground”

[–] throwaway-blaze 3 days ago

Um, all of the companies mentioned in this comment thread (with the exception of the original company mentioned, NeXT) received VC investment.

MBAs don't roll into startups to help get them off the ground. One of the good things about what YC has done to startup culture is remove the notion that engineers can't just run the company and do sales.

[–] no_wizard 2 days ago

As noted, I said they ruined venture capital not that venture capital wasn’t a thing, or VC funding wasn’t a thing.

[–] coldtea 2 days ago

>Um, all of the companies mentioned in this comment thread (with the exception of the original company mentioned, NeXT) received VC investment.

Yes, but in a much less frenzier and more kept in its place VC capital mindset.

[–] coldtea 2 days ago

>I also worked at modern-ish Amazon and it sucked. Horrible office environment, tedious tasks and overall sense of oppression is what I felt. It is such a huge company, maybe there were pockets of joy.

Amazon is and always have been bean counters and toxic work culture, and any level, from warehouses to their devs. The rot starts with Bezos.

[–] vondur 3 days ago

Oh wow, Be and Eazel. I bet you have some good stories. I do miss the BeOS and Eazel was doing some good stuff for the Linux desktop back in the day.

[–] diskzero 3 days ago

Lot's of good and bad stories, which are also good. Eazel and Be were quite different but both companies really got jammed up by Microsoft. Microsoft was constantly threatening other companies who wanted to work with us. Be actually ended up getting a settlement out of Microsoft a decade later. I am not sure why Eazel didn't pursue that. It could be because it wasn't in the DNA of Andy to litigate.

Eazel stories are very interesting because the company was trying to interact with the open source movement and this caused some friction several times. Looking back at some of those meetings, it is interesting to compare the youthful idealism of people like Miquel DeIcaza and Nate Friedman to the people they have become today.

[–] piyiotisk 3 days ago

Wow you worked at General Magic? It must be such a cool experience to work there. Tell us more!

[–] diskzero 3 days ago

The General Magic movie covers some things. It is worth a watch.

I am trying to think of something interesting that hasn't been mentioned before. One thing I keep thinking about, when comparing it to other companies I have been at, is that I really liked the founders and the people there. So much in fact, that I ended up working with subsets of them at other companies a few more times. There was definitely stress and overwork and unpleasant things like that, but I never ended up feeling abused or treated poorly in the ways I experienced at Apple, Amazon, other startups or DreamWorks actually.

[–] Andr2Andr 3 days ago

I think at least in PhD positions and university research labs the environment is not as toxic and nowadays at least PhD students can experience something similar to the vibes of a team working together on some cool project.

[–] pengaru 3 days ago

I suspect massive companies like late stage GOOG and AMZN will always be dominated by an oppressive machine in the rank and file. It seems inevitable at this scale.

But the wonderful thing about these places is they can create/acquire/prop-up small subsidiaries. If they're self-aware enough to know the oppressive force at their size, they leave these offshoots alone (until too big, where the cycle repeats anyways). These are the parts where you can still experience the magic being discussed.

Presumably working at X Development (formerly Google X) still has a lot of this energy and autonomy.

[–] elvinyung 3 days ago

which andy are you? :p