创业与商业steveblank.com
精灵离开中土：汽水不再免费（2009）
The Elves Leave Middle Earth – Sodas Are No Longer Free (2009)
2009 — 2022，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这篇 Steve Blank 2009 年的文章以“精灵离开中土”隐喻创业公司被并购后文化蜕变：当公司停止提供免费苏打水等小福利，往往意味着管理层开始紧缩开支，也预示着公司士气与未来的转折点。文章从这一日常细节切入，讨论了企业文化信号的重要性。
为什么经久不衰：它用免费饮料作为“煤矿中的金丝雀”，提醒人们捕捉公司走下坡路的最早信号，对职场人和管理者都不过时。
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免费饮料的取消是公司恶化的早期预警信号，可作为判断客户状况的指标。
在最初的互联网泡沫时期，我在一个地方工作，那里有一台我见过的最神奇的咖啡机。它有一个可乐机那么大，能做一万种特色咖啡，都是按你的要求定制的。真是太棒了。然后有一天一个人推着手推车进来，把咖啡机装上运走了。一周后裁员开始。这里的教训并不是免费苏打水或咖啡有什么神秘之处，而是当你以前提供免费苏打水和咖啡，然后停止时，你在告诉公司里的每个人：生意不如以前了。饮料是会计们容易获批削减的项目，所以在困难时期它们首先被砍。但它们也是小开支项目，所以虽然它们是被砍的第一项，通常不是最后一项。换句话说，免费苏打水是煤矿里的金丝雀。当它们死了，如果你不想一起死，就该离开了。这就是为什么如今我拜访客户时，会特意在会议开始前和他们一起去休息室喝杯咖啡。如果他们那边的饮料供应状况比我上次来时升级了，说明他们干得不错；如果降级了，我就知道要提防会计人员盯上我和他们的关系。
smacktoward查看英文原文
Back in the original dot-com bubble, I worked at a place that had the most amazing coffee machine I've ever seen. It was the size of a Coke machine and made ten thousand varieties of boutique coffee, most of which I'd never even heard of, all made to your specifications. It was incredible. Then one day a guy came in with a hand cart, loaded the coffee machine on it, and rolled it away. A week later the layoffs started. The lesson here isn't that there's something intangible or magic about free sodas or coffee. It's that when you used to give out free sodas and coffee, and then you stop, you're telling everyone in the company that business isn't as good as it used to be. Beverages are an easy thing for the bean-counters to get approval to cut, so when times get tough, they get cut first. But they're also a small line item, so while they're the first thing to get cut, they're usually not the last. In other words, the free sodas are the proverbial canary in the coal mine. When they die, it's time to get out if you don't want to die with them. This is why, when I visit clients these days, I make a point of going with them to their break room to get some coffee before our meeting starts. If their beverage situation has been upgraded since my last visit, they're doing well. If it's been downgraded, I know to be on guard for bean-counters coming after my relationship with them.
取消小福利的责任在CEO；领导者应明确成本削减的边界，保护文化。
我见过这类事发生，几乎总是归咎于创始人和最高层领导。专职的CFO和会计类型只是在做自己的工作，他们的唯一焦点往往是利润和公司财务健康。维护、培养或增强公司文化不是他们的工作，那是CEO的工作。在这种情况下，CEO有责任说出诸如“免费零食和苏打水有无形的好处，这样的小事能帮助为公司赚钱的人更长时间地保持专注并度过一天”之类的话。尽早帮助会计们了解成本削减的界限在哪里，这样你就不必以后事无巨细地管理他们的每个决定。随着时间的推移，他们会开始理解你的文化，并把注意力集中在真正的问题上，比如融资、确保发票支付、安排并购交易等他们被雇来要做的事情。
hkarthik查看英文原文
I've seen such things happen, and I almost universally blame the founders and top level leadership when this kind of thing happens. Dedicated CFOs and accounting types are simply doing their job. Their singular focus is often the bottom line and the company's financial health. It's not their job to maintain, foster, or enhance company culture. That is the job of the CEO. In situations like this, it's the CEO's responsibility to make statements like "there are intangible benefits to free snacks and sodas. Small things like that help people that make money for the company stay focused longer and help them get through their day." Help the accountants understand where the cost cutting boundaries are early, so you don't have to micromanage every decision they make later on. Over time they'll start to "get it" with your culture and they'll focus their attention on real problems like getting financing, making sure invoices are paid, setting up M&A deals, etc that they were hired to do.
为省小钱而削减福利会严重损害顶尖员工的士气和留存，得不偿失。
我妻子曾在一家非常大的公司（财富50强/道琼斯工业指数）做软件工程师。有一次他们决定把几栋楼里的饮水机撤掉——这一举措据估计每年节省50万美元。但一位顶尖的软件工程师给公司带来的利润远不止这个数，所以如果此举让某人越过底线变成“我要去竞争对手那里”或“我要去当自由职业者”，那很快就会变成减分项。即使他们没有离开，每天人们走过曾经有茶水饮料的地方，不得不继续走30英尺去饮水机或自动售货机时，士气也会受损。如果每个公司都应该了解一件事，那就是顶尖人才在高士气状态下运营对你的利润非常有利。在茶水饮料和办公设备这类东西上吝啬（比如“你必须自己买第二个显示器”）是会扼杀士气的。
lotharbot查看英文原文
My wife was a software engineer at a very big company (Fortune 50 / Dow Jones Industrial). At one point they decided to take the water coolers out of several buildings -- a move estimated to save half a million dollars a year. But one top-notch software engineer adds a lot more than that to the company's bottom line, so the move can very quickly become value-subtracting if it pushes someone over the edge to "I'm going to go to [competitor]" or "I'm going to go become a contractor". Even if they don't leave, there's a morale penalty applied every day when someone walks past where there used to be refreshments, and has to keep walking another 30 feet to the water fountain or vending machine. If there's one thing every company should understand about software, it's that top-notch people operating at high levels of morale are great for your bottom line. Being cheap about things like refreshments and office equipment ("you have to buy your own second monitor") is a morale killer.
空降不懂业务的经理导致老工程师出走，形成恶性循环，真正的问题其实是文化。
有些人已经对“专业”经理人被聘来管理他们的团队并且据说股票比早期工程师还多感到不满。我认为这是主要原因。最初的员工已经证明了他们能把组织从0管理到盈亏平衡，而且并没有停止前进，正期望把公司从盈亏平衡带到盈利。现在他们头上被塞进一些对业务或技术一无所知的“主管”，他们唯一的角色是在工程师和公司高管之间做联络人。因为对公司没有展现出对创始员工忠诚感到不满，那些人离开了。这个账其实非常简单。我多次看到这种模式，通常结果是这些新经理出现，做出糟糕决定（因为他们不懂业务），然后卷铺盖走人（带走他们的股票），重复4-5次，直到出现一位经理如此无害，最后剩下的工程师干脆自己掌管一切，而经理只是每周出席会议以便与公司联络。与此同时，公司股票因为流出给过去的经理们而稀释，公司失去了大部分资深工程人员，被迫提升较低级、能力较差的人到高级职位，或者从外部招聘（再次是不懂业务的人），进一步加剧恶性循环。
elblanco查看英文原文
>Some had already been irritated when “professional” managers had been hired over their teams with reportedly more stock than the early engineers had. I'd say this was the main reason. The original employees had already proven they could manage and grow the organization from 0->even, and hadn't slowed down expecting to move the company from even->profit. Now they have "supervisors" who don't know anything about the business or technology, shoved in on top of them, who's only role is to act as liaison between them and the corporate officers. Bristling at the lack of corporate loyalty shown to the people that made the company happen, those people leave. The calculus is really very simple. I've seen this pattern happen a number of times, and the usual result is that these new managers show up, make poor decisions (because they don't understand the business) cycle out (taking their stock with them), repeat 4-5 times until a manager shows up who is so inoffensive that the remaining engineers simply end up running the show in the end anyways and the manager just shows up to weekly meetings so she/he can liaise with corporate. In the meantime, the company stock has diluted as it fled out the door to the past managers, the company lost most of its senior engineering staff, forcing them to promote lower level, less capable staff to senior positions or to hire externally (again people who don't understand the business further exacerbating the vicious cycle).
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