I’ve been asked a lot recently what it’s like to switch from a big company to a small startup. The analogy I keep coming back to: it’s like moving from F1 to Rally.
In F1, the racing is high-telemetry, high-precision. You have metrics for everything. You know the track — the turns are predictable, the speeds are calibrated, the causes are understood. And you go lap after lap after lap, optimizing seconds. There is risk, but existential risk is rare. There is a fundamental predictability to it.
That’s also how it works in a big company. A large part of the job is staying on that track and continuously working away on shaving off seconds.
Rally is something else entirely. Fast turns, unexpected turns. Moments where you’re flying off a bump — exhilarating — and then you realize you need to make a sharp right the moment you land, because if you don’t, you’re off the track. No telemetry. No map you’ve memorized.
That’s what being in a small company has felt like. The highs are real. The lows are real. The amplitude of both is much higher. And existential risk is real too. It requires a different mental calibration — because you can be just a few turns away from being off the track.
I hesitate to call it “fun,” because it’s a certain kind of fun. It won’t be for everyone. It depends on what you’re seeking and what your risk threshold is.
In the spirit of ending with another car analogy, your mileage might vary.
A Learning a Day 