New top story on Hacker News: Ask HN: Why are big companies so much less efficient?

Ask HN: Why are big companies so much less efficient?
2 by aylmao | 3 comments on Hacker News.
I've worked on companies big and small (relativley; smallest was around 400 people, though engineering was closer to 160-200). One thing that has struck me is that, in my opinion, smaller companies seem to get much more done per engineer than bigger ones. I'm curious-- has everyone else has seen this too? In your opinion and experience, why do you think this is? Is this the overhead of decision-making (one person or the engineer deciding vs a chain of command)? Is it that people are just more motivated when they're the underdog? Is it that the inherent size and complexity of a codebase grows exponentially as people grow linearly with time? Is it that some products seem to be "done", and changes are iterative and pedantic, not risky and exciting? All of the above? Maybe even some more? I'd love to hear your stories and thoughts!