Large companies do not generally innovate. Their internal inertia prevents them from successfully creating new things. Also the larger a company gets, the more layers of brainless MBA parasites latch on to suck them dry.
Large companies rely on purchasing innovation by buying up a never ending stream of smaller companies. They then take the ideas/products and launch them to a wider market.
Steam has remained small by rejecting massive buyout offers. This has allowed them to remain innovative.
It started when the company I worked for had a policy against supplying dual sim phones. I have had my personal number for close to 20 years so I am not letting it up. So I carried two phones. At first I was annoyed but over time I got used to talking on one phone and using the other for notes and reference.
Now that I am self employed having the two phones is a habit with how I work.
I hit the point in my professional life when I just stopped asking for time off.
I started using phrases like “I will be out from July 15th to August 9.”, “I won’t be in that day.”, “Sorry that conflicts with my schedule.”.
For a while I kept getting random calls for stuff while I was on vacation. That’s about the time I started carrying 2 phones. The work phone and laptop got left at home.
Write a series of single query per e-mail.
Set then up on delayed delivery every hour through their workday.
It only takes once or twice until people read your entire e-mails.