Especially if you want to be an entrepreneur. This is what Sramana Mitra advises. The paths are different. And the big companies can spoil you in more than one ways - by constraining your skills in a box, separating the business away from your work or by giving away secondary facilities like a gym or pizzas or laptops that start becoming your necessities.
What about working for a big company, they asked. My answer: Working for a big company early on in life develops in you a very narrow skill-set, at a very slow pace, whereas, the range of skills required to become an entrepreneur is frighteningly wide. The resource constraint in starting a company is acute, and hence an entrepreneur needs to wear so many hats, that narrow skill sets tend to produce ineffective / mediocre entrepreneurs. Working for a startup may be a much better preparatory step, instead. Even if the startup fails, you would still pick up the skills necessary to become a strong entrepreneur yourself.
Not that taking up a job is bad. But taking up a job is not on the way to entrepreneurship. I personally feel that attitude and aptitude required for both are completely different, maybe contradicting at times. The biggest thing that gets bypassed in a job is the ability to understand relationship between idea and value, and then between value and business. Robert May’s case study is an excellent example on this.
March 15th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
There are always exceptions to the rule. All the same, I can’t disagree. Working for large corporations in most cases stifles innovation, creativity and gives you tunnel vision. You become embroiled in politics that are entirely unecessary and unproductive. You begin thinking inside out instead of outside in. You completely lose sight of the customer.
This disease is prevelent all over the business world, and it’s the cause for a lot of pain both in the businesses themselves and in consumers. Some businesses are addressing this via Customer Expectation Management and BPM, but for any large corporation this will be a long road.
I wouldn’t tell people not to work for large businesses, but rather not to get caught up in them. Remember it’s a job and not a lifestyle, and don’t lose sight of your goals, or your customers. That goes for if you want to be an entrepeneur or not.
April 27th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
[...] Do Not Work For A Big Company (if you want to be an entrepreneur): [T]aking up a job is not on the way to entrepreneurship. I personally feel that attitude and aptitude required for both are completely different, maybe contradicting at times. The biggest thing that gets bypassed in a job is the ability to understand relationship between idea and value, and then between value and business. [...]
October 9th, 2008 at 9:27 am
[...] I earlier thought that an employee and an entrepreneur needs contrasting attitude and aptitude, this idea of employee-as-a-businessperson can realign [...]