12 ms·

This post rings eerily true. Recently had a company all-hands where the CEO said basically the exact same lines. The whole "if you don't love working here, then

This post rings eerily true. Recently had a company all-hands where the CEO said basically the exact same lines. The whole "if you don't love working here, then you should leave" bit made me cringe. Easy for you to say when you've got a significant equity share in the company. The saddest realization I've had working at companies is how power-hungry people are, how little respect the people in power often have for those "below" them, and how important politics is even in a field like engineering that you'd expect to be meritocratic. Sweeping decisions are often made in a small room of a few "higher-ups" without any input or regard for those "below" them. Providing counter-arguments that question the decisions of the executive caste is often seen as a threat (how dare you question your leader?). The shy and humble rockstar coder who kicks ass gets little recognition while the smooth-talking sycophant gets accolades and climbs the ladder. Corporations are authoritarian tyrannies with strict hierarchies. America was founded on the principles of democracy, but we tolerate tyranny in our workplace. The only way to change this is to remove the asymmetric dependency of the employee on the employer (eg. UBI).

dleslie 9y ago
Avoidance of power inversion is, IMHO, the greatest contributing factor to this state. Management have little to no incentive to assisting the upwards mobility of their subordinates as it is, but the social stigma of someday possibly answering to those you have authority over can drive individuals to undermine the aspirations of others.
- jmspring 9y ago
  A colleague at a former company asked his then manager about the track for promotions. Said manager basically laughed and said "if you got that promotion, then you'd be competing with me". This was a company that had bands that were lumped together for purposes of evaluation.
  - dleslie 9y ago
    AFAICT, the best route to promotion is a transfer to a separate administrative unit altogether, and so avoid this situation; and the best route to a raise is to leave to another company. Relying on your loyalty to be rewarded is a fast track to being played for a sucker.
  - solotronics 9y ago
    IBM?
  - ironic_ali 9y ago
    HP?
peterwwillis 9y ago
We tolerate tyranny and imbalanced power structures everywhere in this country. Corporations are a cheerio in our cereal bowl of oppression.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- gedy 9y ago
  Country? I'd say species.
- yuhong 9y ago
  I was wondering about a country with a king with a board of directors for a while now
- anonisprivacy 9y ago
  From what I've observed, a lot of people 'tolerate' it because they just aren't willing to take the risk to achieve power in the first place. For example, very few people are willing to leave their cushy jobs and grind it out a few years at a startup that might fail.
  - urahara 9y ago
    It is more often about not having an opportunity to choose, and not about not being unwilling to switch to startups.
laughingman2 9y ago
I am in a quickly growing mid-size company which has reduced this problem. The co founders are cool, considerate and have respect for new developers. They provide opportunities to shift across teams and roles based on the principle that not everyone would find right fit in the start. And the CEO answers even mundane questions anonymously. I find it one of the main reasons to stay there even though I have been working there for 2 years now from my graduation.
sanderjd 9y ago
I'll take the unpopular position of supporting a small room of a few "higher ups" making decisions. This is exactly what you want: a small number of people with a lot of skin in the game making important decisions. Good leaders gather feedback and counter-arguments beforehand, but then make a firm decision, and it's diminishingly rare for that decision to please everyone. The people who are not pleased should still follow their lead, despite thinking the decision is wrong. Sometimes the decision is wrong and sometimes the people who think the decision is wrong are the ones who are wrong. There's no way of knowing a priori, and someone needs to be empowered to take the leap on doing what they think is best, and it makes sense for that person to be a "higher-up". Decision by committee or by democracy is too inefficient for a business.
- sitharus 9y ago
  It's the feedback and counter arguments that are often lacking, and being unwilling to admit the decision was wrong. I've been in this situation a few times and it's very hard to push back on a decision that's been 'made' even if it's not appropriate for the team you're on.
  - jaggederest 9y ago
    Yes. I think it's critical to define three things when making a decision: a) What was decided (obvious, but you'd be surprised how often people disagree) b) Why it was decided - Now you can construct a basic "Given X, Y, and Z, it seems like a good idea to A and B" c) The criteria for success or failure - how would someone who did not make the decision know whether it was successful or not? Without all three, you can't make empirical decisions and then follow up on them. Decisions without any of those three are unmoored from reality.
  - RealityNow 9y ago
    Our CEO has flat out told us that it's incredibly hard for him to get honest feedback from anyone (except for maybe the board and investors), and another executive echoed this. Nobody wants to question the almighty CEO to his face. Nothing against the CEO. He's an extremely friendly and approachable person. Most people just fear questioning authority and power, and the CEO in a modern day corporation is revered similar to a king in a monarchy. It's always been like that at every company I've worked for.
Hermel 9y ago
> Providing counter-arguments that question the decisions of the executive caste is often seen as a threat The key to have an impact is not to pose critical questions, but to make constructive suggestions. Instead of saying "you are doing this wrong", suggest how to do better. Good leaders appreciate and encourage this, in particular if the request comes in an actionable format, i.e. "I suggest to do X in order to achieve Y" is much better than "decision Z is stupid".
- lovich 9y ago
  I don't find it very comforting that the people who are compensated the best have to be treated with kids gloves just so they can listen to the information coming from their people. I understand that may be how it _is_ but it's not how it _should be_. Additionally, people lower in the management chain are just going to avoid volunteering information if they are not 100% certain that the bosses are gonna take it well
  - watwut 9y ago
    The parent advice works exactly the same way whe you talk with people under you or with peers. Altrought they have less power to retaliate visibly, they will listen better when you do what parent suggested.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    It's not kid gloves so much as laziness. A good leader can listen to the problem, and just turn it back on the staff for a solution without wasting their brainpower, but many leaders can't... They hear the criticism and think they need to go into "formulate appropriate response" mode. That leads nowhere because there's no space left in their brain, and even if they come off sympathetic the net result is they're not really listening. In those cases, as the underling, it's better to offer a suggestion because they can run with that. Of course, it's easier said than done. Especially if you're busy, you know, doing your job, it can be hard to find the time to sit down and find solutions to what is probably a pernicious problem if it's being elevated to leadership.
krylon 9y ago
I read somewhere - possibly here on HN, but I am not sure - of a Russian who migrated to the USA after the end of the Cold War, who remarked that in the Soviet Union, the state had been very authoritarian while the workplace was relatively democratic, and that in the USA, it was the exact opposite. And sadly, I believe that even with UBI, people will still play their power games, do politics, all that. There might be less of it, but either that is part of human nature (if there is such a thing), or else it would take a massive change in society to make petty turf wars and office politics disappear.
- imhoguy 9y ago
  This is because back then cooperative was most popular form of enterprises in eastern block.
- andrey_utkin 9y ago
  > in the Soviet Union, the state had been very authoritarian while the workplace was relatively democratic Probably if we're talking engineering bureaus in late 1980-es. But even then the setting is quite Dilbert-esque. At best, the democracy was like you can go to hair salon at working time, but not like you can affect any management decisions or working process in any way. It can be in part explained by the fact that there was no relationship between how productive or hard-working the bureau or individual is and how good payment is. In fact, at the salary was most of time constant for any given profession, the situation didn't incentivise hard working, so it's not a surprise if there was little production pressure at workplace. Which leads to one of reasons of failure of the USSR.
anonisprivacy 9y ago
> America was founded on the principles of democracy, but we tolerate tyranny in our workplace. While America was founded on the principles of democracy, didn't they make sure that only a select group of people could participate? In that way, it's similar to how companies are run, with a select group of people making decisions.
hinkley 9y ago
And the guy who points out the emperor has no clothes gets put on probation.
johan_larson 9y ago
> The whole "if you don't love working here, then you should leave" bit made me cringe. Easy for you to say when you've got a significant equity share in the company. In this field, we can in fact move, so "love it or leave it" is not a hollow demand. People in some other fields are far more stuck. A military officer's career is over if he says no to the hierarchy he is part of. He may find work after the army or navy, but it will be very different work, effectively the start of a different career. We on the other hand can move pretty much down the street and do very similar work.
- microtherion 9y ago
  Of course, now and then, military officers DO go to work for the competition, but in that field, that's kind of frowned upon.
panic 9y ago
Yeah, the people doing the work usually know the most about how it should be done. Even without UBI, collective ownership is a strategy worth considering.
erikb 9y ago
Maybe America wasn't founded on the principle of democracy. Have you watched the movie Killing Them Softly?
elmar 9y ago
Really legendary CEO's don't even give stock options to early employes. When Steve Jobs Refused To Give Early Apple Employees Stock, Steve Wozniak Offered Them $10 Million Of His http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-wozniak-gave-early-apple-employees-10-million-in-stock-2014-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-wozniak-gave-early-appl...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- plesiv 9y ago
  Your point? If you wished to imply that because Jobs did it - it's the way to go, you're committing a fallacy of "appealing to authority" [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
  - elmar 9y ago
    the point that strangely even being a douchebag and treating employees like crap he managed to achieve great perceived success and for some people success it's all that matters. Amazon could also be another interesting example Reminder Amazon treats its employees like shit http://gizmodo.com/reminder-amazon-treats-its-employees-like-shit-1792642652 http://gizmodo.com/reminder-amazon-treats-its-employees-like...
- Clubber 9y ago
  I believe in that instance, he did give stock to early employees, but left one of them out (probably because he wanted to be a dick). The rest of the early employees felt bad for the guy since he had been there since the beginning and Woz offered him some of the shares.
walrus1066 9y ago
In a democracy, if you are unhappy with how the leaders runs the country, you vote them out. In a workplace, if you are unhappy with how the management run the company, you vote with your feet and leave, nobody's forcing you to stay.

dleslie 9y ago

Avoidance of power inversion is, IMHO, the greatest contributing factor to this state. Management have little to no incentive to assisting the upwards mobility of their subordinates as it is, but the social stigma of someday possibly answering to those you have authority over can drive individuals to undermine the aspirations of others.

jmspring 9y ago
A colleague at a former company asked his then manager about the track for promotions. Said manager basically laughed and said "if you got that promotion, then you'd be competing with me". This was a company that had bands that were lumped together for purposes of evaluation.
- dleslie 9y ago
  AFAICT, the best route to promotion is a transfer to a separate administrative unit altogether, and so avoid this situation; and the best route to a raise is to leave to another company. Relying on your loyalty to be rewarded is a fast track to being played for a sucker.
- solotronics 9y ago
  IBM?
- ironic_ali 9y ago
  HP?

peterwwillis 9y ago

We tolerate tyranny and imbalanced power structures everywhere in this country. Corporations are a cheerio in our cereal bowl of oppression.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
gedy 9y ago
Country? I'd say species.
yuhong 9y ago
I was wondering about a country with a king with a board of directors for a while now
anonisprivacy 9y ago
From what I've observed, a lot of people 'tolerate' it because they just aren't willing to take the risk to achieve power in the first place. For example, very few people are willing to leave their cushy jobs and grind it out a few years at a startup that might fail.
- urahara 9y ago
  It is more often about not having an opportunity to choose, and not about not being unwilling to switch to startups.

laughingman2 9y ago

I am in a quickly growing mid-size company which has reduced this problem. The co founders are cool, considerate and have respect for new developers. They provide opportunities to shift across teams and roles based on the principle that not everyone would find right fit in the start. And the CEO answers even mundane questions anonymously. I find it one of the main reasons to stay there even though I have been working there for 2 years now from my graduation.

sanderjd 9y ago

I'll take the unpopular position of supporting a small room of a few "higher ups" making decisions. This is exactly what you want: a small number of people with a lot of skin in the game making important decisions. Good leaders gather feedback and counter-arguments beforehand, but then make a firm decision, and it's diminishingly rare for that decision to please everyone. The people who are not pleased should still follow their lead, despite thinking the decision is wrong. Sometimes the decision is wrong and sometimes the people who think the decision is wrong are the ones who are wrong. There's no way of knowing a priori, and someone needs to be empowered to take the leap on doing what they think is best, and it makes sense for that person to be a "higher-up". Decision by committee or by democracy is too inefficient for a business.

sitharus 9y ago
It's the feedback and counter arguments that are often lacking, and being unwilling to admit the decision was wrong. I've been in this situation a few times and it's very hard to push back on a decision that's been 'made' even if it's not appropriate for the team you're on.
- jaggederest 9y ago
  Yes. I think it's critical to define three things when making a decision: a) What was decided (obvious, but you'd be surprised how often people disagree) b) Why it was decided - Now you can construct a basic "Given X, Y, and Z, it seems like a good idea to A and B" c) The criteria for success or failure - how would someone who did not make the decision know whether it was successful or not? Without all three, you can't make empirical decisions and then follow up on them. Decisions without any of those three are unmoored from reality.
- RealityNow 9y ago
  Our CEO has flat out told us that it's incredibly hard for him to get honest feedback from anyone (except for maybe the board and investors), and another executive echoed this. Nobody wants to question the almighty CEO to his face. Nothing against the CEO. He's an extremely friendly and approachable person. Most people just fear questioning authority and power, and the CEO in a modern day corporation is revered similar to a king in a monarchy. It's always been like that at every company I've worked for.

Hermel 9y ago

> Providing counter-arguments that question the decisions of the executive caste is often seen as a threat The key to have an impact is not to pose critical questions, but to make constructive suggestions. Instead of saying "you are doing this wrong", suggest how to do better. Good leaders appreciate and encourage this, in particular if the request comes in an actionable format, i.e. "I suggest to do X in order to achieve Y" is much better than "decision Z is stupid".

lovich 9y ago
I don't find it very comforting that the people who are compensated the best have to be treated with kids gloves just so they can listen to the information coming from their people. I understand that may be how it _is_ but it's not how it _should be_. Additionally, people lower in the management chain are just going to avoid volunteering information if they are not 100% certain that the bosses are gonna take it well
- watwut 9y ago
  The parent advice works exactly the same way whe you talk with people under you or with peers. Altrought they have less power to retaliate visibly, they will listen better when you do what parent suggested.
- erikpukinskis 9y ago
  It's not kid gloves so much as laziness. A good leader can listen to the problem, and just turn it back on the staff for a solution without wasting their brainpower, but many leaders can't... They hear the criticism and think they need to go into "formulate appropriate response" mode. That leads nowhere because there's no space left in their brain, and even if they come off sympathetic the net result is they're not really listening. In those cases, as the underling, it's better to offer a suggestion because they can run with that. Of course, it's easier said than done. Especially if you're busy, you know, doing your job, it can be hard to find the time to sit down and find solutions to what is probably a pernicious problem if it's being elevated to leadership.

krylon 9y ago

I read somewhere - possibly here on HN, but I am not sure - of a Russian who migrated to the USA after the end of the Cold War, who remarked that in the Soviet Union, the state had been very authoritarian while the workplace was relatively democratic, and that in the USA, it was the exact opposite. And sadly, I believe that even with UBI, people will still play their power games, do politics, all that. There might be less of it, but either that is part of human nature (if there is such a thing), or else it would take a massive change in society to make petty turf wars and office politics disappear.

imhoguy 9y ago
This is because back then cooperative was most popular form of enterprises in eastern block.
andrey_utkin 9y ago
> in the Soviet Union, the state had been very authoritarian while the workplace was relatively democratic Probably if we're talking engineering bureaus in late 1980-es. But even then the setting is quite Dilbert-esque. At best, the democracy was like you can go to hair salon at working time, but not like you can affect any management decisions or working process in any way. It can be in part explained by the fact that there was no relationship between how productive or hard-working the bureau or individual is and how good payment is. In fact, at the salary was most of time constant for any given profession, the situation didn't incentivise hard working, so it's not a surprise if there was little production pressure at workplace. Which leads to one of reasons of failure of the USSR.

anonisprivacy 9y ago

> America was founded on the principles of democracy, but we tolerate tyranny in our workplace. While America was founded on the principles of democracy, didn't they make sure that only a select group of people could participate? In that way, it's similar to how companies are run, with a select group of people making decisions.

hinkley 9y ago

And the guy who points out the emperor has no clothes gets put on probation.

johan_larson 9y ago

> The whole "if you don't love working here, then you should leave" bit made me cringe. Easy for you to say when you've got a significant equity share in the company. In this field, we can in fact move, so "love it or leave it" is not a hollow demand. People in some other fields are far more stuck. A military officer's career is over if he says no to the hierarchy he is part of. He may find work after the army or navy, but it will be very different work, effectively the start of a different career. We on the other hand can move pretty much down the street and do very similar work.

microtherion 9y ago
Of course, now and then, military officers DO go to work for the competition, but in that field, that's kind of frowned upon.

panic 9y ago

Yeah, the people doing the work usually know the most about how it should be done. Even without UBI, collective ownership is a strategy worth considering.

erikb 9y ago

Maybe America wasn't founded on the principle of democracy. Have you watched the movie Killing Them Softly?

elmar 9y ago

Really legendary CEO's don't even give stock options to early employes. When Steve Jobs Refused To Give Early Apple Employees Stock, Steve Wozniak Offered Them $10 Million Of His http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-wozniak-gave-early-apple-employees-10-million-in-stock-2014-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/steve-wozniak-gave-early-appl...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
plesiv 9y ago
Your point? If you wished to imply that because Jobs did it - it's the way to go, you're committing a fallacy of "appealing to authority" [1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority
- elmar 9y ago
  the point that strangely even being a douchebag and treating employees like crap he managed to achieve great perceived success and for some people success it's all that matters. Amazon could also be another interesting example Reminder Amazon treats its employees like shit http://gizmodo.com/reminder-amazon-treats-its-employees-like-shit-1792642652 http://gizmodo.com/reminder-amazon-treats-its-employees-like...
Clubber 9y ago
I believe in that instance, he did give stock to early employees, but left one of them out (probably because he wanted to be a dick). The rest of the early employees felt bad for the guy since he had been there since the beginning and Woz offered him some of the shares.

walrus1066 9y ago

In a democracy, if you are unhappy with how the leaders runs the country, you vote them out. In a workplace, if you are unhappy with how the management run the company, you vote with your feet and leave, nobody's forcing you to stay.