Watch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqkA9sKH_Y0
“Deploying capital” sounds simple, but in most tech companies, it’s a bureaucratic nightmare. Why do teams spend entire quarters planning for the next quarter, only to argue over meaningless, subjective metrics?
In this episode, we explore the massive gap between executive vision and employee execution. A great vision is useless if your teams can’t (or won’t) build it. We dive into the common dysfunctions that stop progress: internal politics, “budget jacketing” where managers fight for resources, and the “keeping the lights on” mentality that starves innovation.
We also discuss the “Big Tech” incentive problem, where employees are rewarded for building a shiny new thing, getting promoted, and letting the code rot—leaving the company to fix the core business function later.
The fix isn’t another complex framework. The solution is a mix of top-down vision and bottom-up empowerment. We share the “Band-Aid Story”—a powerful, real-world example from a hospital—that shows how trusting employees to solve their own problems leads to massive efficiency gains.
Finally, we tackle the human element of power dynamics. When executives say “we’re a flat org,” is it true? Or are employees just afraid to speak up because “you can fire me”? This is the cultural rot that kills good ideas.
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Chapters:
(00:00) Hello world!
(1:27) Prioritization frameworks become bureaucratic.
(3:22) Executives fail to get vision executed.
(5:44) “Budget jacketing”: the political game.
(9:50) Big Tech: Build, promote, let it rot.
(20:58) The “Band-Aid Fix” story begins.
(23:11) No one will tell management their opinion.
