Interesting article on the evolution of SRAM.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimvino.../#660213d64d05

A couple of points for careful thought a

"One common theme is that the practices have to put people first. “With Value Stream Mapping, for example – it’s about seeing how material and information are flowing, but it’s with the goal in mind of making jobs easier,” Winterkorn said. “It’s about tapping into the knowledge of that 30-year employee to empower our workers to solve problems. In the past, we focused too much on tools. Now we focus on people – their ideas, their training, and so on. The tools come after.”

“Our people are a strategic advantage,” said Lousberg. “The innovations they come up with are huge, and our culture is one of our secret weapons, and our secret sauce is our people.” Winterkorn agreed. “I travel the globe and tell people, our products don’t make SRAM great – our people do.” "

It's one thing to pay lip service to employee empowerment, it's quite another to put it into practice. I have never worked for SRAM, and don't know anyone that has. I have, however, worked for companies that only claimed employee empowerment as a policy, and others that actually did it. A company that transform their culture into a learning organization is quite rare.

I can say I like SRAM products. I have two old mountain bikes with older gripshifts, two bikes with Red 10 drive train (one with a full Red gruppo), and two with Force 10 drive trains. I have a 2017 Cdale Habit that came with Deore XT, but I'm changing over to an Eagle group. I haven't had any issues with quality or performance from them yet.