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The ideal of the 6-pager is magnificent. The reality of the 6-pager in 2019 is that it has become boilerplate where style overwhelms substance. Similar things

The ideal of the 6-pager is magnificent. The reality of the 6-pager in 2019 is that it has become boilerplate where style overwhelms substance. Similar things can be said of their OP1 and OP3 planning processes that are becoming increasingly cargo cult IMO. And that arises naturally from a static game whose most experienced players have become better at funding projects than they are at funding better projects. Though very late to the party (modulo Alexa), Amazon has eagerly embraced AI and machine learning since 2015, but it lacks the leadership for formulating clear targets (see AutoML and AlphaGo Zero as examples of clear targets IMO). A recent article in _The Information_ made the claim that their entire AI organization is making <$20M annually. That is consistent with what I saw there: an effectively infinite number of codemonkeys throwing unprocessed data at randomly chosen AI algorithms downloaded off of github and hoping for the best. It's an interesting experiment, but it seems to be about as efficient as a monkey throwing darts to pick stocks (which is surprisingly better than many biased investment advisors admittedly). Time will tell, no? https://www.theinformation.com/articles/demand-soaring-for-amazon-ai-services-not-so-fast https://www.theinformation.com/articles/demand-soaring-for-a...?

erikpukinskis 8y ago
They need a 6-pager czar who has the power to send back to editing any paper that's not readable enough.
- varelse 8y ago
  That just pushes the problem one level down on the stack, no? Or who sends back the work of the 6-pager Czar? IMO they need to refresh the process, and refresh it frequently. I don't see them doing that though. Similar things have happened with the well-intentioned "bar-raiser" process as well IMO. I had bar-raisers in interview loops for my team who seemed more intent in blocking potential competitors to their niche than in hiring the best people, which was the whole point of said "bar-raising."
  - erikpukinskis 8y ago
    No, distributed responsibility is qualitatively different from a single responsible party.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  They just need an AI to review for sub-optimal 6-page reports. First cut can be built off of mechanical turk.
gregdunn 8y ago
> The reality of the 6-pager in 2019 is that it has become boilerplate where style overwhelms substance. I can't say I agree. I'm in the middle of a 6-pager, and the overwhelming majority of feedback/comments from people I've asked to review it have been very specific to making sure there IS substance. Tons of 'This is unclear. Need extra details and specifics', 'Why is this the case?', and so on. Plenty of grammar/style feedback as well, but the whole point is attention to detail.
otterley 8y ago
> The reality of the 6-pager in 2019 is that it has become boilerplate where style overwhelms substance. I think this varies by team. In my experience thus far, I've been receiving lots of feedback -- often actionable -- to improve my own narratives. If your reviewers aren't pushing back on you when your paper lacks the required substance, that definitely needs to be addressed. > OP1 and OP3 planning processes that are becoming increasingly cargo cult IMO Businesses need operating plans to determine prioritization and funding. What's the problem with them, exactly?
- varelse 8y ago
  In my case, the project we wrote an OP1 for was judged to be too technically complex such that anyone capable of executing on it would be a "flight risk" capable of commanding higher pay elsewhere. Therefore they decided to destaff the effort and wait for me to prove them right rather than give me a couple engineers and enough rope to hang myself (which I wouldn't have most likely given my track record that established me as a "flight risk" apparently). Can we say self-fulfilling prophesy?

erikpukinskis 8y ago

They need a 6-pager czar who has the power to send back to editing any paper that's not readable enough.

varelse 8y ago
That just pushes the problem one level down on the stack, no? Or who sends back the work of the 6-pager Czar? IMO they need to refresh the process, and refresh it frequently. I don't see them doing that though. Similar things have happened with the well-intentioned "bar-raiser" process as well IMO. I had bar-raisers in interview loops for my team who seemed more intent in blocking potential competitors to their niche than in hiring the best people, which was the whole point of said "bar-raising."
- erikpukinskis 8y ago
  No, distributed responsibility is qualitatively different from a single responsible party.
kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
They just need an AI to review for sub-optimal 6-page reports. First cut can be built off of mechanical turk.

gregdunn 8y ago

> The reality of the 6-pager in 2019 is that it has become boilerplate where style overwhelms substance. I can't say I agree. I'm in the middle of a 6-pager, and the overwhelming majority of feedback/comments from people I've asked to review it have been very specific to making sure there IS substance. Tons of 'This is unclear. Need extra details and specifics', 'Why is this the case?', and so on. Plenty of grammar/style feedback as well, but the whole point is attention to detail.

otterley 8y ago

> The reality of the 6-pager in 2019 is that it has become boilerplate where style overwhelms substance. I think this varies by team. In my experience thus far, I've been receiving lots of feedback -- often actionable -- to improve my own narratives. If your reviewers aren't pushing back on you when your paper lacks the required substance, that definitely needs to be addressed. > OP1 and OP3 planning processes that are becoming increasingly cargo cult IMO Businesses need operating plans to determine prioritization and funding. What's the problem with them, exactly?

varelse 8y ago
In my case, the project we wrote an OP1 for was judged to be too technically complex such that anyone capable of executing on it would be a "flight risk" capable of commanding higher pay elsewhere. Therefore they decided to destaff the effort and wait for me to prove them right rather than give me a couple engineers and enough rope to hang myself (which I wouldn't have most likely given my track record that established me as a "flight risk" apparently). Can we say self-fulfilling prophesy?