Pros
Initial startup environment was great - everybody helped with everything.
There were no company secrets in the beginning - management shared everything which made everybody feel like they 'owned' what they were doing.
The early development/test team was terrific - great talent, great knowledge, higfh quality effort - and market leading products!!
In the beginning only the best developers were hired.
Great small company perks! Coffeee, snacks, Friday lunches, staff social evernts!!
Kontras
As PlateSpin grew it assumed a more 'corporate' environment. Executive managment became 'removed' from day-to-day eforts of staff.
"Getting the product out the door' became more important than getting a GOOD product out the door.
Also, it started to seem that hiring any developer was preferable to hiring the best developers.
Once company began geting lots of venture funding it seemed that executive management started to keep secrets abouit things that it had freely shared before.