It seems like at some point in growth all companies attract a critical number who don't really care. Maybe it's just hard for people to care when the numbers are big. Maybe that caring is hard to maintain as things get more institutionalized
There’s honestly probably a lengthy blog post in this.
Especially in the sector of managed/professional services or SaaS - companies try to scale up fast to have more customer acquisition (focus on net new), and tend to sacrifice the level of bespoke service that retains customers, leading to increased churn over time.
This approach usually means that ARR will increase over the short term (3-5y), which is totally fine, but unless your service is really sticky or you gain market dominance, the growth curve will eventually plateau and enter a decline.
You also see this outside of tech - in the service industry in general. Company expands rapidly, service deteriorates over time, eventually enters a decline phase.
Maintaining quality of service is hard over the long term to balance with growth, you really gotta put the work in.
So this is the exact reason that my software business will only grow to the point that it provides enough for my wife and me.
Why are people so obsessed with growth? They're like the businessman/tourist in [1], and I just want to be the fisherman.
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anekdote_zur_Senkung_der_Arb...
Examples:
- Microsoft commitment for Windows to be backward compatible or their care about Excel (including using their own compiler, 1-2-3 compatibility in early years etc). Doesn’t means that there aren’t also examples of the clearly not-GAS.
- Hospitality industry which trains their staff and makes extensive use of checklists and SOPs. Disney comes to mind or high-end hotels.
- Most services in Japan, where it scales culturally
I think most people have the capacity in them to care. Working at a place you don't care about is utterly miserable and draining in the long run, its not something someone does by choice. People usually end up doing it when they are isolated from the effect of their work. Either not hearing at all whether anyone used or cared about your work, or worse hearing that work was arbritrary/pointless.
For example manager stressing about deadlines, you all work hard to meet them, then all of a sudden it turns out your work isnt being used and is just sitting around. What was the deadline for? why did this happen? does anyone apologise, or even feel the need to explain?
In general being isolated from the effect of your work also had a strong negative correlation with happiness in my experience. Hard to be happy when you feel like a cog in a machine that wouldn't care if you dissapeared.
I guess this sort of situation is inherently more likely as team sizes grow and the number of steps in communication channels rises.
Many times i've observed a team full of people who give a shit breed people that don't, as the company grew and many of them ended up as managers who failed to delegate effectively, and by overworking themselves on the important and meaningful tasks (because they gave a shit) they neglected their reports with menial and meaningless/arbritrary tasks and no feedback (who became morose and could not give a shit if they tried)
Yes. Once a company is a clear contender in a space the ghouls start to show up. They’re there for the easy win. With growth comes the need for more hands and the People who Give a Shit always end up covering for those that don’t.