7 ms·

"Most technology companies eventually get taken over by suits and middle managers." Interesting statement. I suspect this process is well under way at Google t

"Most technology companies eventually get taken over by suits and middle managers." Interesting statement. I suspect this process is well under way at Google these days. But why does this happen? Is it just that once companies grow large enough, you need middle managers, (who then consolidate power and control)? Is there a more nuanced explanation?

enneff 16y ago
"I suspect this process is well under way at Google these days." What's your basis for this speculation?
- plinkplonk 16y ago
  ""I suspect this process is well under way at Google these days." What's your basis for this speculation?" Conversations with friends who work there mostly. One of the advantages of being older is that you know people in most companies who talk to you off the record over beer, sometimes in very "high" positions.
  - mkramlich 16y ago
    I had a similar realization this year. For the first time I realized I knew people who currently work at, or very recently just worked at, all the big software companies: Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook. It may be partly helped by age, but also perhaps if you've ever worked at a large company with a ton of engineers, then leave, and those seeds scatter, eventually at least one ends up taking root at each of the big shops.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- smallchou 16y ago
  Having worked there, it is definitely very much under way. A great indicator is probably how desirable a company is on the list of Top Companies for MBA's to Work For: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/mba100/2009/full_list/ http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/mba100/2009/full_list...
  - sspencer 16y ago
    Apple is a little too close to the top for my comfort.
megablast 16y ago
People tend to hire people like themselves, who think and talk like they do. So once a few middle managers get in, they start to hire other middle managers. They act like a secret club. They speak the same language, went to the same schools, have the same friends, hang around each other, know each other better than people not in the club. They tend to hire and promote other that are similar to them, more than simply basing it on merit.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  There's some truth to what you say but I don't think it's completely for insidious/non-meritocratic reasons. I'm far along enough in my career that I can say that I think what's happening is that it's very very hard to hire somebody through the old "post job, take tons of resumes, filter, interview" method because there's so much crap, and so much noise, and so much risk of getting false positives and false negatives, etc., that eventually you realize it is much much easier and more reliable to hire people you've already worked with at a previous company in the past. You can vouch for them as a known quantity. Ideally, a bigger proportion of hiring would happen like this. But there's always new folks entering the field who won't have somebody to vouch for them, plus, not everybody who you would vouch for is available or interested, so you sometimes to have to go the posting-resume-interview route and cross your fingers. So it's almost the opposite of what you said, though with the same goal! You should want to hire based solely on merit -- but if you have to fill a job opening and your choice comes down to filling it with a total stranger whose resume claims he has 20 years of experience in "J2EE/JBOSS/Jscript" versus filling it with a guy you know firsthand had delivered a major threading-related fix to a previous employer's Java codebase the wiser and more meritocratic choice is probably to go with the second guy. And it's not because he knows a secret handshake. :)
  - megablast 16y ago
    I didn't mean to imply it was insidious, just natural. Just as those of your friends who have the same interests as you, you generally see more often than those who do not.
- philwelch 16y ago
sesqu 16y ago
I think this is it. As you grow, you need something like n/c management, where n is the production workforce and c is maybe 3. That's not too bad of itself, but it comes with a command chain somewhere between log c and c. Everything slows down, gets miscommunicated and politicked, and divergent goals appear. The company is no longer about the product, it's about managing the process that produces product.
inerte 16y ago
Companies tend to protect their cash cows. I suspect a Noogler would be fired to suggest they should get out of search and do something else, just like MS (will take) took a long time to release an Office killer. When process and hires are set up to maximize an offer, over the years the company gets fossilized "doing things this way". It happens on every industry. You find some awesome source of revenue, you build upon it, you get blind to other options.
- rimantas 16y ago
  Apropriate to mention Apple again: ~50% of Apple revenue comes from products which did not exist three years ago.
forgottenpaswrd 16y ago
Steve Blanck talk about this topic: http://steveblank.com/2009/10/01/durant-versus-sloan-part-1/ http://steveblank.com/2009/10/01/durant-versus-sloan-part-1/ Basically a business get specialized in doing something, managers are the best organizing stable stuff, and making money(milking the cash cow). But over time the business change and this people don't like change.
yesbabyyes 16y ago
The Gervais Principle, posted here on HN, was pretty convincing: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=881296 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=881296
russell 16y ago
For the first time in a long time, I am working for a public company instead of a startup or near startup. You cant believe the amount of intrusive government crap. (This is not a political statement.) Timesheets reporting capital work vs expensed work. Sarbanes-Oxaly audits. Ethics and harassment classes. All of a sudden there are all these people who can deal with that stuff and it begins to filter into engineering. I think that it is remarkable that there are large technology companies that can compartmentalize this stuff.

enneff 16y ago

"I suspect this process is well under way at Google these days." What's your basis for this speculation?

plinkplonk 16y ago
""I suspect this process is well under way at Google these days." What's your basis for this speculation?" Conversations with friends who work there mostly. One of the advantages of being older is that you know people in most companies who talk to you off the record over beer, sometimes in very "high" positions.
- mkramlich 16y ago
  I had a similar realization this year. For the first time I realized I knew people who currently work at, or very recently just worked at, all the big software companies: Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook. It may be partly helped by age, but also perhaps if you've ever worked at a large company with a ton of engineers, then leave, and those seeds scatter, eventually at least one ends up taking root at each of the big shops.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
smallchou 16y ago
Having worked there, it is definitely very much under way. A great indicator is probably how desirable a company is on the list of Top Companies for MBA's to Work For: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/mba100/2009/full_list/ http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/mba100/2009/full_list...
- sspencer 16y ago
  Apple is a little too close to the top for my comfort.

megablast 16y ago

People tend to hire people like themselves, who think and talk like they do. So once a few middle managers get in, they start to hire other middle managers. They act like a secret club. They speak the same language, went to the same schools, have the same friends, hang around each other, know each other better than people not in the club. They tend to hire and promote other that are similar to them, more than simply basing it on merit.

mkramlich 16y ago
There's some truth to what you say but I don't think it's completely for insidious/non-meritocratic reasons. I'm far along enough in my career that I can say that I think what's happening is that it's very very hard to hire somebody through the old "post job, take tons of resumes, filter, interview" method because there's so much crap, and so much noise, and so much risk of getting false positives and false negatives, etc., that eventually you realize it is much much easier and more reliable to hire people you've already worked with at a previous company in the past. You can vouch for them as a known quantity. Ideally, a bigger proportion of hiring would happen like this. But there's always new folks entering the field who won't have somebody to vouch for them, plus, not everybody who you would vouch for is available or interested, so you sometimes to have to go the posting-resume-interview route and cross your fingers. So it's almost the opposite of what you said, though with the same goal! You should want to hire based solely on merit -- but if you have to fill a job opening and your choice comes down to filling it with a total stranger whose resume claims he has 20 years of experience in "J2EE/JBOSS/Jscript" versus filling it with a guy you know firsthand had delivered a major threading-related fix to a previous employer's Java codebase the wiser and more meritocratic choice is probably to go with the second guy. And it's not because he knows a secret handshake. :)
- megablast 16y ago
  I didn't mean to imply it was insidious, just natural. Just as those of your friends who have the same interests as you, you generally see more often than those who do not.
philwelch 16y ago

sesqu 16y ago

I think this is it. As you grow, you need something like n/c management, where n is the production workforce and c is maybe 3. That's not too bad of itself, but it comes with a command chain somewhere between log c and c. Everything slows down, gets miscommunicated and politicked, and divergent goals appear. The company is no longer about the product, it's about managing the process that produces product.

inerte 16y ago

Companies tend to protect their cash cows. I suspect a Noogler would be fired to suggest they should get out of search and do something else, just like MS (will take) took a long time to release an Office killer. When process and hires are set up to maximize an offer, over the years the company gets fossilized "doing things this way". It happens on every industry. You find some awesome source of revenue, you build upon it, you get blind to other options.

rimantas 16y ago
Apropriate to mention Apple again: ~50% of Apple revenue comes from products which did not exist three years ago.

forgottenpaswrd 16y ago

Steve Blanck talk about this topic: http://steveblank.com/2009/10/01/durant-versus-sloan-part-1/ http://steveblank.com/2009/10/01/durant-versus-sloan-part-1/ Basically a business get specialized in doing something, managers are the best organizing stable stuff, and making money(milking the cash cow). But over time the business change and this people don't like change.

yesbabyyes 16y ago

The Gervais Principle, posted here on HN, was pretty convincing: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=881296 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=881296

russell 16y ago

For the first time in a long time, I am working for a public company instead of a startup or near startup. You cant believe the amount of intrusive government crap. (This is not a political statement.) Timesheets reporting capital work vs expensed work. Sarbanes-Oxaly audits. Ethics and harassment classes. All of a sudden there are all these people who can deal with that stuff and it begins to filter into engineering. I think that it is remarkable that there are large technology companies that can compartmentalize this stuff.