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     In my career I have worked for a Fortune 50 company, companies with less then 50 employees, private companies that have closed their doors, private companies that have been acquired, and the holy grail of private companies that went public.  What eludes me is how private companies, who are built on sweat equity, go from passionate intimate environments to painful work places. 

     I’m thinking maybe it is my fault, maybe I’m just not cut from the “corporate” cloth.  I’m willing to dive into this first.  About me, I’m what I would consider to be a young professional.  I have a formal education, I have over a decade of industry experience, however, a good portion of that experience has been working with every type of customer across the globe on the sales side, the implementation side, and the consulting services side.  Maybe it is my east coast attitude, being raised in NY, watching people sellout their mother to get a deal closed, taxis literally running each other off the road to get to the next red/green light faster, the march of ants that occurs during rush hour in NYC.  I’ve always taken that as a cherished attitude, and used to have a great sign in my office: “I wanted it done yesterday!”  In NYC this was just typical average passion and energy. 

     Maybe it isn’t about me.  Small companies, especially private companies have the ability to so agile, literally turning on a dime.  While this bring a tremendous amount of instability, it also allows stuff to get done.  Large corporations, while generally stable, get so bogged down with process and procedure that hiring, firing, developing, fixing, and just quickly accomplishing anything becomes almost impossible.  Many things are sacrificed for stability of the all might stickholder, oops, Freudian slip, I meant stockholder.  Sometimes being public is a curse.

     So, I’ve seen it go both ways, I’ve seen very passionate people working for some of the largest companies in the world, I’ve seen deadheads (not Jerry G. fans, but “deadhead” def. #6) working at start-ups, and of course the reverse of both exists in the largest version of the bell curve.  For me, I like being “David”.  So I’ll throw my world wide pants on, help another fledgling company spread its wings, and like all start-ups, if we fly too close to the sun too soon we risk failure, timing is everything.