Stay Hungry

…or at least there could be.

My brother, a solid mechanical engineer and muscle car devotee, was diagnosing an engine problem and asked me what I though.  A customer at his job was reporting sparks coming from one of the pulleys on the front of an engine.  This had been seen only a few other times, and the theories my brother heard were just entertaining.  The customer had no idea what was going on, how to fix it, or whose fault it was.

When I learned a little more about the engine, and the pulley in particular, it became quite clear what was going on.  The pulley, normally a solid circle of metal attached to the engine via a metallic shaft, was made of two separate metal pieces; an outer metal ring and and inner metal pulley, separated by a dielectric (rubber, in this case).  If the belt was slipping on the pulley, an electrostatic charge could build up on the outer ring.  The charge would have no way to dissipate like it would on a normal pulley.  This charge could then arc to the engine block when it was strong enough (which isn’t too difficult, as the block and the pulley are fairly close).

So my brother went on site and sure enough, the belt was loose.  A quick touch with the multimeter confirmed that the pulley was acting electrically as a capacitor, and a new (correctly tightened) belt fixed the issue.  What’s interesting is that at some point, a mechanical engineer added that rubber ring as a damper without realizing the electrical implications under a common failure mode.

During our meeting with Fred Wilson last week he mentioned something fairly obvious about our company: we have too few engineers  (i.e. just me).  He was making the point that one particular path for our company could see it thrive (netting a few million a year in profits) with a small 10-12 person staff (7 engineers or so).  But it started me thinking about it from the other angle: what if we had too many engineers?

I firmly believe one of the reasons startups create some of the most beautiful and expertly crafted products is that they have limited resources with which to produce them.  Startups therefore, by necessity, build only to create value and build the smallest solution possible.  This viewpoint is bolstered by 37signals’ Getting Real, Paul Graham in many of his excellent essays, and the principle of least effort (or path of least resistance, if you will).  It’s why Rob Pacheco says, “to find the most efficient way to accomplish a task, give it to the laziest guy in the kitchen.”

Conversely, when a startup grows (or starts) too big, it produces decreasingly beautiful products.  Engineers, by definition, like to engineer.  An average engineer - which most of them are, by definition of the word average - will not achieve perfection.  Since these engineers have to do something with their time, the company they work for ends up with an over-engineered product (by definition!).  It is the rare exception (i.e. Apple) that can produce many beautiful products by the labor of many engineers.

-A Lazy Engineer