Successful companies go blind 12 days ago
This reminds me of my days at Intuit. In its earliest days, Intuit had excellent people and teams. But by the time I got there, it had gotten too comfortable being an industry leader without real competition. That led to matrix management: as a product manager, I reported to the product org but also needed approvals from so many cross-functional counterparts that we could barely get anything done. Over time, that comfort bled into a lower bar for hires.
Contrast that with Facebook, where I later worked. Teams there were bolder and moved more quickly. I still had to collaborate with cross-functional partners, but it felt more collaborative — and we had much more autonomy as long as my team hit its goals each quarter.