If you’re thinking about joining a smaller company, don’t. Who wants their ideas to be heard, have meaningful ownership of projects, and the freedom to actually solve real problems instead of just managing them? It’s all a bit… impactful. If you’re not careful, you might find yourself making decisions that actually shape the business. That’s a lot of responsibility. Better to let that sort of thing stay above your pay grade.

More than ever, it's obvious that the next decades will be shaped by smaller companies that do the work instead of just talking about it. 

It's become clear to me that people want to work for companies that operate in a more modern, thoughtful way-from flexibility and compensation to hiring practices and project management. We're leaving behind a world where large corporations, with their rigid work-from-home policies and bureaucratic structures, dominate the workforce. The gig economy is exploding. Recent reports estimate that over 36% of the U.S. workforce now participates in gig or freelance work. It's time to rethink the world of work. As Glenn Reynolds writes in An Army of Davids, "The big office with everyone working in one place is increasingly an artifact of the past. More and more, people are working remotely, from home or elsewhere, and coordinating via the Internet." Artifact of the past. 

Smaller companies operate with a different mindset. You don’t need three months and six meetings to propose a better way of doing something. You can just do it. You’ll work on actual solutions, not slide decks about solutions. You’ll hear from the client or customer directly-not filtered through five people or a three-tier ticketing system.

And now, more than ever, smaller companies are exactly where the future is being built. The next generation of problems like AI integration, automation of legacy systems, and building new technology that will solve the problems of tomorrow won’t be solved by 500-person departments. Not because they lack the skill, but because they are too big and too slow to adopt, adapt, and ship. Many of the most impactful problems will be solved by nimble, practical, high-trust teams that can listen, act, and ship. Small companies don’t just talk about innovation-they build it. Now is the time to branch out, start something new, and get back to producing real value. 

While big companies are still drafting AI readiness reports and slogging through year-long AI security and compliance reviews, smaller teams are already embedding AI into daily workflows, quietly, effectively, and without the fanfare, and definitely without the overhead. At BT Pro, we use AI to write code, research, automate our internal operations, and help clients do more with less. Not to chase hype, but to make work actually better. There’s no AI task force, just practical application, everywhere we can.

But this comes at a cost: your work will matter. You might be asked to weigh in on strategy, customer service, or a real need a client or customer has. You might help design a new feature on Monday and deploy it by Friday. You’re not “in the loop”, you are the loop. There’s no status meeting for that.

We don’t believe work should consume your life either. Our goal is to keep a healthy, focused team together for the long term. That means sustainable hours, minimal meetings, and time built in for deep, uninterrupted work. As Cal Newport writes in Slow Productivity, "The goal is not to get more done, but to get the right things done at a sustainable pace." Everyone should have enough left in the tank at the end of the day for what matters most - family, faith, friends, hobbies, whatever fills you up. We’re not here to burn out bright, talented people. We’re here to build a company that lasts.

We're also here for the humans. We want to build a company that genuinely cares for people and inspire others to do the same. I fear companies will use AI simply to optimize the bottom line rather than empower their employees to do more impactful, meaningful work. The disruption happening across the workforce demands more than just efficiency; it demands guidance, support, and a commitment to helping people grow into new jobs. Unfortunately, many companies will find ways to prioritize profit over people. We want to be different. We need more companies that are different. 

And we keep things small on purpose. Not because we lack ambition, but because we believe small is strategic. It’s how we move faster, communicate clearly, avoid bloat, and stay focused on solving the right problems. Scaling adds overhead. We want to focus on getting things done, not coordinating across 10 departments. That’s the kind of scale we’re after. There are many problems that can be solved with better technology-and usually, the solutions are closer than you think. We want to be a company that solves our fair share of them! 

If that sounds scary or uncomfortable, we get it. Big companies offer stability, specialization, and structure-and that works for a lot of people. But if you’re looking for a different kind of experience-something faster, sharper, more impactful-this might be your moment. Start something new, join something small, make an impact.

So no, definitely don’t work for a smaller company. Not unless you want to put your time, your ideas, and your energy towards building the future and having a bigger impact.