4 ms·

Working in the "trenches" where you direct your own work and have $1B in the bank isn't exactly the same as working in the "trenches" under the direction of tho

by YZF 9y ago

Working in the "trenches" where you direct your own work and have $1B in the bank isn't exactly the same as working in the "trenches" under the direction of those disconnected managers that have all this leverage on you. Good engineers, who should not be going into management, are doing so because it's their only way out of the trenches. Founders get a choice between becoming managers or letting someone else run their company. Can you manage a tech company without understanding technology? How come we're not innovating more on the structure of those companies?

louithethrid 9y ago
>Can you manage a tech company without understanding technology? Definately. Most managers pride themselves in that they can manage anything. The usual bad results, when that happens in an non-production company, are not mentioned. >How come we're not innovating more on the structure of those companies? Inovating on human nature, usually results in delusions and hatred on other humans, resulting in murderous cults and political movements. But dont you worry, funny experiments happen all three generations, and then never again. Leviathancybernetics is complicated, and the resulting, highly innovation producing constructs would be described by most people here as a pit of missery. And lets not forget, funny games with human nature are also highly dependent on a constant economic surplus. We do not behave rational when times get tough. (Although we constant claim to be). Humanity is no plane- humanity is a supertanker, with a very huge turn circle and lots of fragile components. Whoever wants to manipulate this- good luck.
jlg23 9y ago
> How come we're not innovating more on the structure of those companies? There have been tons of research and it is still ongoing. Just check the "management" department in your library. Companies around the world are permanently trying new ways to organize themselves but you don't get as many "we tried $foo, it fails" blog posts you get from the IT scene, where post mortems for even the most trivial failures are currently en vogue. But if you ask any manager s/he will volunteer stories, usually quite happy to be asked an abstract question in their area of expertise.
sushisource 9y ago
Well, you present a bit of a false choice here. Carmack's choice was "Never grow the company to the point where you need managers" Turns out, it was a perfectly valid choice for him, but it means you have to be incredibly talented, and so does everyone you hire.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
protomyth 9y ago
> Can you manage a tech company without understanding technology? I sometimes wonder if show runners would be a better fit for managing IT projects than traditional managers. It would seem someone who has dealt with FX and other creative elements on a budget and timeline might be better qualified since they probably don't have an in depth knowledge of every aspect but are able to ship.
coldtea 9y ago
>Can you manage a tech company without understanding technology? Yes. You just need to understand people, markets, and processes. Any deep technology insight will be irrelevant -- the right advisors from your stuff (which you'll know who they are, since, as we said above, you can understand people -- including when they are full of shit or not), can explain it to you "like you are five". Taleb makes a similar point described here that extends beyond the domains in the story: One of the most successful traders to ever buy and sell green lumber – which is freshly cut wood – actually had no idea what he was trading. He spent his entire career trading green lumber career believing the product was just wood painted green, and not newly cut trees. His ignorance of the product had no impact on his ability to make money trading it. The term “Green Lumber Fallacy” was coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his excellent book ‘Antifragile’, where he outlined a second similar situation: a star Swiss Franc trader who’s inability to locate Switzerland on the map didn’t hinder his ability to make money trading its currency. https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-articles/betting-psychology/the-green-lumber-fallacy#height https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-articles/betting-psychol...
- TeMPOraL 9y ago
  There's a flipside to this though - this is how you get shit and useless products. What you (or Taleb) are describing here is a money-making specialist. A person who can play the market and management game well. That's almost entirely orthogonal to creating the best product, or doing something valuable for society. The argument I'm trying to make here is very similar to the one about MBAs ruining companies. You get people who can play the market game so well their incentives get completely misaligned with what the rest of the company would like (and what the customers would like). And in general - as a society we like free markets and competitions because they're supposed to give us a spectrum of products, from cheap but good enough to expensive and high quality, in an efficient way. But people who are too good at optimizing for the way markets work can make money without giving us the result we expect, thus ruining the very reason we want capitalist economy.
TeMPOraL 9y ago
> How come we're not innovating more on the structure of those companies? We are, but probably not in the way you'd like. It all boils down to the fact that the strongest influence on a company comes from the market. So whatever innovation happens, it's shaped by the market forces. As it is, it turns out the market will allow almost any shit to fly within the company, as long as the sales & marketing team is doing their job. Hence crappy products can get made and workers can be unhappy, while the company can still succeed.

by YZF 9y ago

louithethrid 9y ago

>Can you manage a tech company without understanding technology? Definately. Most managers pride themselves in that they can manage anything. The usual bad results, when that happens in an non-production company, are not mentioned. >How come we're not innovating more on the structure of those companies? Inovating on human nature, usually results in delusions and hatred on other humans, resulting in murderous cults and political movements. But dont you worry, funny experiments happen all three generations, and then never again. Leviathancybernetics is complicated, and the resulting, highly innovation producing constructs would be described by most people here as a pit of missery. And lets not forget, funny games with human nature are also highly dependent on a constant economic surplus. We do not behave rational when times get tough. (Although we constant claim to be). Humanity is no plane- humanity is a supertanker, with a very huge turn circle and lots of fragile components. Whoever wants to manipulate this- good luck.

jlg23 9y ago

> How come we're not innovating more on the structure of those companies? There have been tons of research and it is still ongoing. Just check the "management" department in your library. Companies around the world are permanently trying new ways to organize themselves but you don't get as many "we tried $foo, it fails" blog posts you get from the IT scene, where post mortems for even the most trivial failures are currently en vogue. But if you ask any manager s/he will volunteer stories, usually quite happy to be asked an abstract question in their area of expertise.

sushisource 9y ago

Well, you present a bit of a false choice here. Carmack's choice was "Never grow the company to the point where you need managers" Turns out, it was a perfectly valid choice for him, but it means you have to be incredibly talented, and so does everyone you hire.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

protomyth 9y ago

> Can you manage a tech company without understanding technology? I sometimes wonder if show runners would be a better fit for managing IT projects than traditional managers. It would seem someone who has dealt with FX and other creative elements on a budget and timeline might be better qualified since they probably don't have an in depth knowledge of every aspect but are able to ship.

coldtea 9y ago

>Can you manage a tech company without understanding technology? Yes. You just need to understand people, markets, and processes. Any deep technology insight will be irrelevant -- the right advisors from your stuff (which you'll know who they are, since, as we said above, you can understand people -- including when they are full of shit or not), can explain it to you "like you are five". Taleb makes a similar point described here that extends beyond the domains in the story: One of the most successful traders to ever buy and sell green lumber – which is freshly cut wood – actually had no idea what he was trading. He spent his entire career trading green lumber career believing the product was just wood painted green, and not newly cut trees. His ignorance of the product had no impact on his ability to make money trading it. The term “Green Lumber Fallacy” was coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his excellent book ‘Antifragile’, where he outlined a second similar situation: a star Swiss Franc trader who’s inability to locate Switzerland on the map didn’t hinder his ability to make money trading its currency. https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-articles/betting-psychology/the-green-lumber-fallacy#height https://www.pinnacle.com/en/betting-articles/betting-psychol...

TeMPOraL 9y ago
There's a flipside to this though - this is how you get shit and useless products. What you (or Taleb) are describing here is a money-making specialist. A person who can play the market and management game well. That's almost entirely orthogonal to creating the best product, or doing something valuable for society. The argument I'm trying to make here is very similar to the one about MBAs ruining companies. You get people who can play the market game so well their incentives get completely misaligned with what the rest of the company would like (and what the customers would like). And in general - as a society we like free markets and competitions because they're supposed to give us a spectrum of products, from cheap but good enough to expensive and high quality, in an efficient way. But people who are too good at optimizing for the way markets work can make money without giving us the result we expect, thus ruining the very reason we want capitalist economy.

TeMPOraL 9y ago

> How come we're not innovating more on the structure of those companies? We are, but probably not in the way you'd like. It all boils down to the fact that the strongest influence on a company comes from the market. So whatever innovation happens, it's shaped by the market forces. As it is, it turns out the market will allow almost any shit to fly within the company, as long as the sales & marketing team is doing their job. Hence crappy products can get made and workers can be unhappy, while the company can still succeed.