SWARM is excited to be sponsoring season 3 of the podcast Cut Your Learning Curve, a podcast about learning and the intersection of work and technology. In this season Nate Cooper, managing partner at SWARM is joined by Eve MacKnight, Director of Learning to discuss topics pertinent to life and work in our digital age.
If companies of the twentieth century looked to Ford, General Electric and IBM as the gold standard for organizational performance, companies today model themselves in the image of Apple or Facebook – innovative, nimble and incredibly successful. Both Apple and Facebook share an origin story of small beginnings: of a few young men gathering in a garage or a dorm room to create The Next Big Thing. While the unicorns (tech firms valued over $1 billion) earn the most attention and headlines, the majority of tech start-ups are still in the “small and growing” stage.
The hallmark of tech startups is a focus on speed, shared responsibility among a small team and rapid growth. Standard operating procedures, and the layers of bureaucracy that they often entail, come later.
This approach, at its best, can empower the team and lead to truly great product development. I’ve heard many tech professionals, upon moving away from the early stages of a tech start-up, describe how much they miss it.
However, as these ideas and practices are now being applied across so many different industries and types of production, I do wonder if they are a good fit. I hope leaders of the future bring a balance of old and new to best serve their employees, companies and society at large.
In this week’s podcast, Nate and Eve dive into their own work experiences. Join them to hear their take on the drawbacks and benefits of life inside a tech start-up.
Check out this week’s podcast with Nate and Eve.
