Until very recently, I’d worked in businesses in the tens of billions in revenue all my life. I am no management scientist, but what’s been remarkable as someone on the inside of all these colossues (colossi?) is that they have all ended up in a similar pattern.

“You know what’s so awesome about working at a start up?” a friend asked me recently. As someone who until recently had always worked at giant slow-moving oil tankers of companies, I had to screw up my eyes and search my brain. He took pity on me eventually.