[depereo]

I think this trend to talk about startup practices in large orgs is more executive nostalgia and a complaint about all the processes put in place to catch mistakes that have been made before.

The same people as developers would be pursuing rewrites of rock-solid 20+ year mature software projects because there's a trendy framework.

Large organizations don't have 'startup spirit' because 'startup' companies fail. Employees of large mature orgs with 6000 employees didn't sign on to a company that's got a good chance of not existing next quarter. They're not taking massive risks and throwing halfbaked features into a brand new product with 1 client hoping to get bought by facebook or maybe an insurance company.

If those big companies are really complaining about not having startup spirit maybe they should provide an exit for the VCs and aquihire (briefly because the engineers will all leave asap) a startup!

[ParetoOptimal]

You make it sound as if big companies are generally really effective and its enabled by their bureaucracy.

[depereo]

Not my intention, sorry!

Big organisations are stable, mostly due to the often frustrating inertia and lack of risk taking coupled with their existing, mature revenue streams.