The Dead Neuron

Since working at Google, I’ve come to see big corporations like a human brain. Complex, adaptive, full of redundant paths.

If one neuron goes silent, the signal finds a way around. It always does. You know the person I’m talking about. The one who’s supposed to own some piece of work, but hardly replies. You try to loop them in, move a piece forward — but nothing. Just radio silence.

That’s what I call the dead neuron.

In a startup, that’d be a blocker. In a big corp ? Not really. People route around. They find a workaround. The task moves, the project progresses, just without them.

And here’s the thing: dead neurons train people to stop depending on them. To skip them. To forget them. They become a name you avoid mentioning. A calendar invite you don’t bother sending. Not because you’re mad - but because you’ve adapted. Some folks even lean into it. “If I stop replying, they’ll stop asking.” And sure, they do.

So if someone sent you this, maybe they tried to ping you — and the signal died in your synapse.

Reconnect.

Post scriptum

The opposite is just as real. If you always reply - even to things you don’t own - just to help out, you slowly become the default active neuron for that signal.

In big corps, work is just a chain of neuron activations: one ping lighting up another. And if someone manages to pass a task to you once, they’ll come back. That’s how you become the go-to, the shortcut.

My manager used to say, “Nathan, be careful - because the reward for good work is always more work”.

So yeah, don’t be a dead neuron. But also set your boundaries. Or you’ll get wired into flows you never meant to be part of.