We act like startups but skip their hard-won lessons
John Ousterhout, who wrote A Philosophy of Software Design, put out a short note on startup company culture back in 2021. It is five years old and aimed squarely at startups, and I think it reads better now than when he wrote it.
A lot of us are running like a startup without realizing it. Budgets are thinner, AI is getting pushed into every workflow, and the instruction from every direction is the same: iterate faster. We are running startups inside organizations that were never built to be one, mostly without calling it that.
Startups spent decades working out how to move fast without falling apart. Ousterhout's five principles are that lesson, and none of it is startup-specific; it is just what any team needs when the pace goes up. Better borrowed on purpose than relearned the hard way.
He sums it up near the end: "a highly iterative culture where we move quickly but make constant corrections." The five principles, with my take on each:
- It's OK to make mistakes. Speed guarantees errors; the unforgivable ones are hiding them or repeating them.
- We want to know about problems. Say it early; a surprise at the deadline costs far more than an awkward heads-up now.
- Success is execution plus consultation. The quiet nod-then-miss is the real failure, not the miss itself.
- Get lots of input, then move. Consult as wide as the decision is big, then actually decide.
- The reasonable person principle. Assume good faith and ask before you attack; defensiveness burns the energy you need to correct course.
None of this needs a startup to work. It needs a team that treats a caught mistake as a normal Tuesday, which is what a lot of us in older, slower organizations are quietly trying to build. Five years old, written for startups, and worth your ten minutes.
More things I've been digesting
