If you are making the move from a big company to a startup, Scott Converse has a must read post up about passive-aggressive behavior titled Corporate vs. Startup behaviors.
I can’t stand passive-aggressive behavior, especially in a startup context. I’d much prefer a good argument. The value of being direct is extremely high, especially when faced with the amount of ambiguity that exists in a startup.
I’ve never really worked for a large company (even my time at AmeriData was really more of a big startup since it was growing so fast and doing so many acquisitions) so I’ve never really learned (or experienced) how to survive in a big company. Nor do I really care since I doubt I’ll ever be in that environment. However, I do care about how to map big company experience to entrepreneurial experience and Scott provides some very useful insights in his post.