The other way to build a massive tech company - doing it slowly A Podcast by Howie Liu www.secretleaders.com I like to think about the early years of [Airtable] as not only a great time for us to be patient and to get a lot of details right in the product. I think some of those details had to be done in a slow, deliberate way with a small team. You can't necessarily parallelize the design and development of a really detail-oriented product. detailsproductsslowness
The dual ladder The first task for growing designers, as opposed to managers, is to craft a proper career path for them, one whose compensation and sociological status reflect their true value to the creative enterprise. This is commonly called the dual ladder. It it easy to give corresponding salaries to corresponding rungs, but it requires strong proactive measures to give them equal prestige: equal offices, equal staff support, reverse-biased raises when duties change. Why does the dual ladder need special attention? Perhaps because managers, being human, are inherently inclined to consider their own tasks more difficult and important than design and need to deliberately assess what makes creativity and innovation happen. Frederick P. Brooks, Jr., The Design of Design Senior craftsperson work