I’ve come to believe that “building a startup inside a company” is harder than building one outside.

Pros:
* easy access capital (but then same goes outside today, and you can’t use that capital the way you want and are often forced to waste it)

(Cont.) https://twitter.com/mattdsandler/status/1311697027743404032

* free distribution, in theory — but in practice, much fewer cos have distribution than think they do, and there are a lot of safeguards preventing you from using what there is

Cons
* You constantly have to justify your existence to 1000 stakeholders. Have seen lots of intrapreneurs with the metrics that could have justified a series A or B, but got shot down anyway because of internal dynamics

* constant and significant tax on your most precious resource as a founder — your time. Easily 20-30% of it spent making slides for other execs or managers inside the co

* attract the wrong kind of talent. “You can do a ballet or you can do a rock concert; but you can’t hire ballet dancers and then do a rock concert.”

The kind of talent that a $100B+ public co attracts just doesn’t have what it takes to get a startup off the ground

* you’re subjected to processes and policies designed for a co literally 10,000x your size. Very few cos know to be discriminate in the processes they apply

* you generally can’t do things your way — have to satisfy 30 stakeholders who don’t understand or care about your biz

One great trick about intrapreneurship from “how breakthroughs happen.” Align your unit with the top priorities of the core business.
Eg the Xbox was funded at MS bc they promised to build on top of Windows and “make it boot in 3s”
This alone justified the investment for Gates

Have heard one intrapreneur at a $200B+ company describing his job as “fighting against a $50M startup with both hands behind my back”