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Yes. They are Accenture or CGI, but just marketed in a different way. They have no 'special sauce', it's in many ways kind of a scam. When you grow up, you as
by jariel 7y ago
Yes. They are Accenture or CGI, but just marketed in a different way.
They have no 'special sauce', it's in many ways kind of a scam.
When you grow up, you assume the authorities around you have integrity and competence, in many ways they really do, but on others, they really don't. It's weird.
It's really hard to even grasp the level of bureaucratic incompetence, which is a form of fraud, because it doesn't seem possible, but it's real.
This stuff is 'Developed World Corruption', it's a more sophisticated version of the same scams run in the developing world that we more obviously identify as fraud.
It's hard to explain how billions magically disappear on ridiculous, overly complicated, poorly designed systems that don't work and FYI had ridiculous requirements to begin with - but it happens all the time.
- jacobush 7y agoWhen it's sufficiently complex, a majority of the workforce don't know it's a scam. That's a difference compared to poorer countries.
- jariel 7y agoSemi-literate people building a power plant in a poor country don't know either, or rather, it may not be apparent when working on the project that 10% was taken off the top. But I have to feel a lot of devs making a $1B simple app have a clue that something is off.
- jacobush 7y agoI think the power plant builders just by default assume they are being taken advantage of. The devs are busy gathering requirements, going to meetings, being shuffled between projects etc etc. Consultants brought in. Stuff rescheduled. Maybe, maybe not.
- jariel 7y agoYes, this is probably it. And it's scary how intelligent professionals can exist in a system of total dysfunction and in a way not recognize it. This is worth studying - how the perception reasonable authoritativeness (which is not actually authoritative) perpetuates itself in social systems, i.e. the blind leading the blind, unaware they are blind. I worked in a Fortune 50 and recommended we 'find some smart young devs' to work on this project, they thought I was crazy, it hurt my credibility. A year later, one of our interns quit and did the same thing, almost alone, with much greater success. I shamefully admit I was looking for my 'I told you so' comeuppance, shockingly, it never happened. The system was too inept and lacking in self-awareness to see what had just happened, internalize and adapt. Nope. Just a mixture of unaware, don't care, ignored, avoid. Someone at lunch somewhere might have said 'Wow, look at what that intern did'. Of course, they almost went out of business but it's not the same for other conglomerates.