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Possibly. However, I would counter that if you have a whole team leave you then, as a first step, you should look at yourself as to why. On the other hand, any

Possibly. However, I would counter that if you have a whole team leave you then, as a first step, you should look at yourself as to why. On the other hand, any company should be prepared for that kind of departure -- which I know is difficult. If it helps, let's remove the human element and think about it from a disaster recovery perspective. You need a replacement plan for the whole group. It's vital if you want to do things like take your team out to lunch (food poisoning) or to any group activity (transport accident) or be in a single office (anything that takes out the building will take out your team). Could you rebuild your product team from scratch and still proceed with the deliverables that have actually been checked into source control and the issues that have been entered into the issue tracker? It's a good question to ask.

bpchaps 11y ago
Unfortunately the people element is too big to remove from this equation and should be included in your risk model. Another thing to consider is that people are just generally assholes and will take advantage of a system like this. Like I said in a previous comment, I was part of a small group that joined a company, and the outcome was awful for everybody included. Disaster isn't really relevant here, everything started to fall apart, people quit included me, morale was awful, etc. When I joined, all I wanted was to have an interesting job, but they wanted an "alliance" with me. It was fucked in the most Machiavelian, spoiled brat way. I can't imagine that won't happen elsewhere. Anecdata, n=1, blah blah. Incidentally, their DR test at one point wasn't really a valid DR test, since it didn't do of any sort of rigor. Not to mention the other DR tests/events I've seen at other companies ;).
- justinjlynn 11y ago
  Yeah, fair enough. It does introduce an interesting social dynamic. > people are just generally assholes and will take advantage of a system like this. Not to belabour the point but could you expand on what you mean? I would think that a rational economic actor would take advantage of a beneficial opportunity that presents itself.
  - bpchaps 11y ago
    Sure - I'll give you my real world example. Apologies in advance for the long story. I was "poached" into another company in a relatively large company in finance as a linux admin along with a PM coworker who I viewed as a good person and incredibly technically savvy. She was brought on by the AMRS CTO of the previous company. In a lot of ways, when we joined, we were viewed as a single unit with a single agenda by many of the other folk at the company. I tried steering of it as hard as I could, but it got pretty hectic for the entire company when the two "agendas" didn't work that well together. It might've just been the culture, but a few other things at the company gave me an off feeling that threw an enormous Machiavellian vibe all throughout, but that's a different story. The guy who brought me in, though. He pulled me to the side after they decided that the dynamics were too much and switched me to a different team where my old PM coworker would act as my boss. The idea was nice and I had more freedom (they never took away my root access), but he completely confirmed that people can, and do, take advantage of "teams" to push an idea. He told me three things all paraphrased, but not inaccurate things: "You're my fall boy. If something happens, I want you to fall in my place." "I want you to outperform all of the other teams in the company." No pressure, right. "You're here to push my agenda." I believe that his end goal with his 'agenda' was to become CTO, which.. thankfully.. didn't happen. Instead, [edit: very large company]'s head of tech stepped into that position. --- The reason this gets to me and how I can see that attitude being incredibly expansive if adapted, is because this is a well known name in finance right now with increasingly large names from other companies coming in. Nobody's really batted an eye at it. This also isn't the first time I've seen this kind of attitude before. It's incredibly systemic finance and I see the same attitudes in SV. It doesn't seem like a leap of faith to say that the same bleedingly charismatic and moralistically dead attitudes exist there, too. There's a certain attitude and behavior from those who feel that they're at the top that distorts the way they act. Watching House of Cards felt all too familiar. It was all very creepy, and I don't see that behavior going away any time soon. My 2c.

bpchaps 11y ago

Unfortunately the people element is too big to remove from this equation and should be included in your risk model. Another thing to consider is that people are just generally assholes and will take advantage of a system like this. Like I said in a previous comment, I was part of a small group that joined a company, and the outcome was awful for everybody included. Disaster isn't really relevant here, everything started to fall apart, people quit included me, morale was awful, etc. When I joined, all I wanted was to have an interesting job, but they wanted an "alliance" with me. It was fucked in the most Machiavelian, spoiled brat way. I can't imagine that won't happen elsewhere. Anecdata, n=1, blah blah. Incidentally, their DR test at one point wasn't really a valid DR test, since it didn't do of any sort of rigor. Not to mention the other DR tests/events I've seen at other companies ;).

justinjlynn 11y ago
Yeah, fair enough. It does introduce an interesting social dynamic. > people are just generally assholes and will take advantage of a system like this. Not to belabour the point but could you expand on what you mean? I would think that a rational economic actor would take advantage of a beneficial opportunity that presents itself.
- bpchaps 11y ago
  Sure - I'll give you my real world example. Apologies in advance for the long story. I was "poached" into another company in a relatively large company in finance as a linux admin along with a PM coworker who I viewed as a good person and incredibly technically savvy. She was brought on by the AMRS CTO of the previous company. In a lot of ways, when we joined, we were viewed as a single unit with a single agenda by many of the other folk at the company. I tried steering of it as hard as I could, but it got pretty hectic for the entire company when the two "agendas" didn't work that well together. It might've just been the culture, but a few other things at the company gave me an off feeling that threw an enormous Machiavellian vibe all throughout, but that's a different story. The guy who brought me in, though. He pulled me to the side after they decided that the dynamics were too much and switched me to a different team where my old PM coworker would act as my boss. The idea was nice and I had more freedom (they never took away my root access), but he completely confirmed that people can, and do, take advantage of "teams" to push an idea. He told me three things all paraphrased, but not inaccurate things: "You're my fall boy. If something happens, I want you to fall in my place." "I want you to outperform all of the other teams in the company." No pressure, right. "You're here to push my agenda." I believe that his end goal with his 'agenda' was to become CTO, which.. thankfully.. didn't happen. Instead, [edit: very large company]'s head of tech stepped into that position. --- The reason this gets to me and how I can see that attitude being incredibly expansive if adapted, is because this is a well known name in finance right now with increasingly large names from other companies coming in. Nobody's really batted an eye at it. This also isn't the first time I've seen this kind of attitude before. It's incredibly systemic finance and I see the same attitudes in SV. It doesn't seem like a leap of faith to say that the same bleedingly charismatic and moralistically dead attitudes exist there, too. There's a certain attitude and behavior from those who feel that they're at the top that distorts the way they act. Watching House of Cards felt all too familiar. It was all very creepy, and I don't see that behavior going away any time soon. My 2c.