You must not judge a fish as stupid by its inability to climb a tree!—Albert Einstein

Recently, a highly talented and compensated client in the technology space came to me frustrated and defeated despite his stellar contributions during the past year. He was working as a technologist in a company that provides R&D solutions to its manufacturing business and the company is a leading vendor of state-of-the-art technology products. What my client had done during the past year was to take few of its “shelved” technologies and created a business that catapulted the company’s BU into a new space to be seen as the first-mover of that product, a first for that company, not just for its BU. Although this company has been a leading provider of technology products, it was not seen as the leader in offering new technology to the market. But, in this case it changed that.

Yet, when the Annual Performance Review was given, my client did not score so high in how he was rated, let alone singled out for a promotion to the next level with a generous bonus to boot that he was expecting. He was dinged for not having technical depth, not making original technology contributions, and for not filing any patents, etc. during that year, despite the roaring success of the product he brought to market.

Here is the classic case of how someone who brings a different cluster of skills is berated because in the context of the company the person did not bring what the company valued more. This company valued original research and advancing the technology envelope more than it did being first to market with the existing portfolio of its technology assets that were otherwise languishing.

This episode got me thinking!

Clients often come to me wanting to know how to engage their skillset to advance their career and to find joy in their work. Some are PhDs with deep knowledge of certain technology areas, some are engineers at heart, who like to tinker with things and make new gadgets with the knowledge of how things work, others are more focused on pushing the technology envelope to make smaller, cheaper, and more efficient devices regardless of where their application lies. Yet others with MBAs are more focused on creative business models that disrupt the status quo, not because of their technology or engineering prowess, but because of how they see their business going in new directions with their unique insights and execution skills in the application of technology, engineering, and products. Here, they create a disruptive force in the business world that changes the business paradigms, as my client did in this above story.

The purpose of this blog is to shed some light on the different “flavors” of companies, each holding one single driving purpose behind their ethos and subordinating other factors to that purpose. I want to make my case with some paragons of each type to highlight how they focus on their core mission and how you, as someone pursuing a career can view what they do in light of what stirs your passions. I am going to do this by giving you examples of a few well-known companies that I consider to be the best players in each field. Of course there are other companies playing in other fields of pursuits, similar to these, but I have not identified or labeled them or their “missions.” I am sure that the list is quite a bit longer than what I have here, but I merely want to make my point with this limited illustrative cluster of companies and their “missions.”

Technology company: Intel, Space-X, Tesla
Engineering company: Google,
Product company: Apple, Facebook
Business company: Amazon

This list is my own take on how each company dominates in its space with special emphasis on its core competency that I have listed next to it. What this means is that the Intel-class companies drive the core technology frontier to make smaller and smaller (and cheaper, faster) devices as its main thrust. Of course, it has top-notch engineers, product makers, and business leaders to make it all work as a successful business. But, its first and foremost focus is on pushing the technology envelope. Keeping this singular focus on technology alone is how Intel lost big in the new business areas provided by mobile platforms, communications (Qualcomm and others took that away from Intel).

The same can be said about Google, which is mainly an engineering company. It is constantly pursuing ways to access information in the most efficient ways. Although Google will engage in technology endeavors to explore new vistas to grow its business, at its heart it is an engineering company.

Apple and Facebook, on the other hand, are archetypal product companies. Their focus is to make products that attract people to use them with engagement and devotion. Does it mean that they are not managing their business right? No, what that means is that their main focus is to make their products wow their users and let the business models and all other aspects of how they run their companies be driven by other considerations and factors that stem from making such products that gives them that market advantage.

Amazon sees itself more as a business-first-and-everything-else-second company. This is why it has come up with business models using existing technologies that have disrupted the status quo on many fronts. For example, on AWS (its $7B/Yr. Amazon Web Services business) front, it is now celebrating 10 years as the #1 cloud services provider. To provide a glimpse of how this relentless focus on business (Vs. on engineering, technology, or product) works can be gleaned from a recent interview by the person in charge of Amazon Cloud technology. And in the process, AWS has sent shockwaves through the traditional enterprise sector and through those who make systems and hardware.

In an interview with Business Insider, Werner Vogels — the CTO of Amazon in charge of AWS — explained why hardware companies are going to face serious market headwinds as a result of its thrust to develop its own hardware and systems to optimize its cost-performance curve for such installations. His argument is that vendors such as HP, IBM, Cisco, and others make generic gear that does not provide the best cost-performance factors AWS is looking for. So, Amazon’s decision in this case—as it is also in all other such cases—is purely driven by business considerations and not much by anything else.

What does this all mean when you are seeking the right career path for yourself? First you must be clear in the space in which you want to dominate. If you want to play in the engineering sandbox, Google is your employer of choice. If you want to leverage your MBA to create innovative business models and rely on technology to provide that edge then Amazon is your employer of choice. If you want to advance technology and pioneer new vistas of performance envelope in technology for its own sake then Intel is the place where you’ll find most growth opportunities. I am sure one can sift through other companies playing in different verticals to find their main focus and decide if their career path provides them the best opportunities for how they want to grow their career.

So, the next time your boss dings you in your performance review, do not wage a fight and try to convince them that your contributions helped the company to be seen as a leader in a new area of market that it had not pursued before and that you need to be rewarded for it commensurately. Instead, look for a company that holds such contributions as valuable and pursue your next job in such companies.

Good luck!