I find this letter from John Carmack interesting in that it summarizes a sentiment I've heard from literally all of the highest impact/most effective people I've talked to at large companies:
You can make a big difference, but you're constantly fighting against a self-sabotaging organization.
I know some fairly high impact people who aren't bothered by this kind of thing; those people tend to say things like "I try not to care too much" or "I used to get too frustrated, so now I [do less].
@danluu Do you see a trend in frequency of such problems over time? (I know it can be hard to estimate that, given that company size often changes over time.) I'm curious to see if me seeing problems that are vaguely similar more is due to the world changing, or me getting to see a different part of it.
