[alexwennerberg]

> The only way to truly opt out of big-company organizational politics is to avoid working at big companies altogether.

This is perhaps what I find somewhat odd about Sean's writing. It sometimes reads to me like a scathing critique of the dysfunctional bureaucratic dynamics of big tech companies, but that isn't really his conclusion!

[SpicyLemonZest]

The key point is at the end of the OP. The dysfunction and bureaucracy are annoying, even to the people who make a career out of it, there's no level of enlightenment where it stops being so. It's just an inevitable consequence of doing some kinds of things and making some kinds of decisions. If you're faced with an important decision affecting 10,000 employees or a million users, there's no perfectly good way to make it, only a least bad way.