Yes Virginia, You Can Work on Great Technology at Startups

Mon, 06 Dec 2010 02:17:00 +0000

You can work on great technology at startups. You wouldn’t think that would be a controversial statement. But it is if you believe Ted Tso’s defense of Google, “Google has a problem retaining great engineers? Bullcrap.” Ted dismisses the engineering that goes on in a startup, saying:

Similarly, you don’t work on great technology at a startup. Startups, by and large, aren’t about technology — at least, not the Web 2.0 startups like Facebook, Foursquare, Twitter, Groupon, etc. They are about business model discovery. So if you are fundamentally a technologist at heart, whose heart sings when you’re making a better file system, or fixing a kernel bug, you’re not going to be happy at a startup. At least, not if the startup is run competently.

Google on Bulrush Labs — Richard Tibbetts

Yes Virginia, You Can Work on Great Technology at Startups