Grounding the future of a changing Silicon Valley hyper-growth start-up: A practice perspective

Hypergrowth startups quickly change while struggling to keep stability, leading to the emergence of two opposing practices. How do these strategies coexist without blocking the startup? We performed an ethnographic study of a Silicon Valley startup that, in a few years, expanded to 9 offices worldwide and built factories on three continents. We discovered the emergence of two mega-practices – Futuring, which has a cognitive discursive practice of Philosophising, with abstracting and questioning as sub-practices, and behavioral practice of Experimenting, with anewing, versatiling, opportunizing as sub-practices, and Presenting, which also has a behavioral practice of Formalizing, with procedurizing and unisoning as sub-practices, and the rhetorical practice of Legitimizing, with Original intentionaling, and Just-improving as sub-practices. Our research contributes to the study of organizational change through a paradox perspective, bringing a temporal dimension to the exploration and exploitation research.