> almost no individual at Google has the fire or drive in them to play to win
No one with such a drive would stay in, or even go to Google, neither any GAFAM-like corp. Those have been the establishment for 10+ years now.
A large corporation cannot seriously pretend to encourage their employees to "play to win" when it is structuring itself against that precisely.
The bigger the corp, the slower, duller and more rigid it becomes _unless_ someone at the CxO level actively fights against it in a opinionated manner (which still doesn't often register well with boards and major shareholders).
It may be sad, it's quasi a law of physics for corporations. If you have that kind of fire in you, go first hunt into to the woods, don't go to the factories.
> A large corporation cannot seriously pretend to encourage their employees to "play to win" when it is structuring itself against that precisely.
I am not so sure it's that cut and dry. Even among the FANG, the desire to play to win is vastly different. I'd say Apple still has that mojo. Facebook also more than Google although that ship went south post-2018, I'd say.
Tesla comparatively underpaid and overworked people but I think they play to win.
SpaceX even more so. Folks who work hard there are excited to do so because they feel their work matters.
There are non-monetary structural features of large corporations that make them different on that metric. I think the desire at the top to want to win in the first place is critical, plus the autonomy at the lower level to ship cool ideas without much roadblock or dilution of contribution among way too many people.
No one with such a drive would stay in, or even go to Google, neither any GAFAM-like corp. Those have been the establishment for 10+ years now.
A large corporation cannot seriously pretend to encourage their employees to "play to win" when it is structuring itself against that precisely.
The bigger the corp, the slower, duller and more rigid it becomes _unless_ someone at the CxO level actively fights against it in a opinionated manner (which still doesn't often register well with boards and major shareholders).
It may be sad, it's quasi a law of physics for corporations. If you have that kind of fire in you, go first hunt into to the woods, don't go to the factories.