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Every time I read this book I get something new out of it…
I honestly think this is the first run-through where I’ve actually understood the chronology in full, as well as the cause-and-effect across chapters. Notably, the connection between Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse’s information theory recommendations and the actions of Detachment 2072 is a lot clearer to me this time than it ever was before!
The chronicles of Epiphyte and the whole software startup ecosystem also resonate so much more deeply with me now than they ever have before. Turns out being embedded in it myself for the last 4 years has (unsurprisingly) changed my perspective a bit and I understand Randy’s struggles at a far more intimate level. This set of conversations among Epiphyte’s board in particular help to explain some of the facts of startup life that have frustrated me for a while:
“I don’t mean to alarm you,” Randy says, “I’m not implying that any such thing is happening, or about to. But America being the way it is right now, you’d be amazed how often business ventures lead to lawsuits. When that happens, any and all documents are disclosable. So people like Avi and Beryl never write anything down that they wouldn’t want to see in open court. Furthermore, anyone can be asked, under oath, to testify about what happened. That’s why two-person conversations, like this one, are best… The reason that Avi and Beryl didn’t tell us about this until now was that they wanted to work out the problem face-to-face, in two-person conversations. In other words, they did it to protect us–not to hide anything from us. Now they are formally presenting us with the news.”
Now I don’t want to make broad, unwarranted assumptions. But my impression is that some of these basic principles have enshrined themselves in American business culture, in particular in the world of venture-backed startups. And that what Randy’s getting at here does a lot to explain the piecemeal way that information flows through organizations and the limits of transparency around decision-making; they may have far more to do with avoiding future litigation or accusations of malfeasance than they do with any sort of manager-subordinate, executive-team relationship.
Furthermore, the emphasis on 1:1 meetings over so-called ‘asynchronous’ communication makes a lot more sense when viewed through the lense of a future inquiry; it’s (at least in part) about not accumulating evidence that could later be framed as wrongdoing. 1:1 meetings keep things (informationally speaking) tidy and contained.
There’s definitely more to this cultural focus (avoiding unnecessary group communication is a laudable goal on its own), but I do think it’s a useful explanation that goes some way toward explaining this trend.
