15 ms·

Office Life at the Pentagon Is Disconcertingly Retrograde

67 points by bill38 6y ago

throwanem 6y ago
https://archive.is/UgYQP https://archive.is/UgYQP
chance_state 6y ago
>With no connectivity and little diversity, the military's hub may soon be a threat to national security. I guess you have to work in diversity issues to get clicks these days. Shame, could have been an interesting article.
- badrabbit 6y ago
  Are you saying it's not an issue or are you claiming it is not a national security concern?
  - dx87 6y ago
    It's neither an issue, nor a national security concern. All branches of the military actively try to increase the amount of minorities they recruit, and it's just rediculous of the author to claim that a group of people that is primarily one race or gender can't effectively run the military. The military is one of the best ways for someone to escape a bad situation at home, while receiving a paycheck and training that can get them a job once they get out.
    - take_a_breath 6y ago
      If it’s not an issue, why do they “actively try to increase the amount of minorities they recruit?” It seems that their active efforts imply there is an issue.
      - dx87 6y ago
        It's not an issue because of that. The author was implying that the military isn't diverse enough, even though the branches of the military work to ensure they have at least a certain percentage of their forces as minorities.
        Jtsummers 6y ago
        > The author was implying that the military isn't diverse enough They didn’t imply it. They were pretty explicit. Their concern is that despite the diversity of the military overall it is not reflected at the top.
        dx87 6y ago
        "The top" of the military is very small, and considering the majority of the military is white anyway, it's expected that it'd be mostly white. Anecdotally, I saw much more diverse leadership in the military than I've ever seen in the civilian sector, probably because no matter your background, everyone starts at the bottom in the military.
        recursivecaveat 6y ago
        Is that unexpected? To be secretary of the navy or commander of the marine corps one has to be ~60 with a commission date in the early 80s. In 2060 the 2020 level of diversity in lieutenants should be reflected at the top.
        take_a_breath 6y ago
        ==In 2060 the 2020 level of diversity in lieutenants should be reflected at the top.== Your embedded assumption is that today’s lieutenant diversity reflects the overall military’s diversity of 1980. Is this true?
        recursivecaveat 6y ago
        I am sure the top will not be as diverse as the bottom for centuries due to systemic biases in the promotion process and correlation with other symptoms of inequality. My point is just that you should temper your expectations about responsive change in the end of such a long assembly line.
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      can't effectively run the military is a cheap summary of the arguments in the article: If you believe diversity of experience and perspective improves decisionmaking, this should worry you. The secretary of defense needs to revolutionize recruiting, mentoring, and promotion Those are about improving effectiveness (which is optimization, not a binary effective/not effective argument) and management practices.
      - dx87 6y ago
        If the author had stuck to the sentences you quoted, I'd agree. The problem is, they had to throw in the comment about it being a bunch of old white men, as though the color of someone's skin tells you everything you need to know about their background. I'm white, and I frequently got in disagreements with military leadership who were also white because we came from different backgrounds, and had a different perspective, especially regarding the use of technology to enhance effectiveness.
- theduder99 6y ago
  poor wifi, poor cell service, complaints about standardization around power point, and then launch into some SJW diversity crap. terrible clickbait.
- ape4 6y ago
  Having people with a variety of backgrounds would help with a bit of understanding of the countries around the world where the military is engaged.
  - blantonl 6y ago
    And given that the United States armed forces are incredibly diverse, so should it's representative leadership.
    - ReptileMan 6y ago
      Us armed forces are like 80% white when I skimmed the official data.
      - wongarsu 6y ago
        In case anybody else had to look it up: The US as a whole is 63.3% white (55% for people aged 18-19, 74% for people aged 55-64).
      - cmurf 6y ago
        Looking at "All officers", it's about the same as the civilian workforce. i.e. both armed and civilian work forces under represent black Americans. Enlisted is more diverse than the general population, and officers are less diverse than the general population. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military
throwanem 6y ago
I don't really find any of this surprising in light of history. A standing army that hasn't fought a real war in a long time just naturally seems to break out in office politics, as the more ordinary paths to promotion and power are unavailable, and the nature of the work shifts over time to mostly what we today call "bullshit jobs". And our standing army hasn't fought a real war in going on eighty years. I agree that it's a problem, and I respect that the intent behind the article is to disclose the problem in a popular forum - or, the choice of forum being Wired, I suppose popular-ish - rather than to analyze and seek solutions. But I'm not sure I see where simple disclosure devoid of context is likely to elicit any useful result. edit, 10:24 EDT: I might have better said "major war" than "real war", but "total war" isn't that far off in the modern period - but the comparison, with periods prior to the modern codification of the total-war concept, I think still holds merit. In any case, asymmetrical actions explicitly do not qualify; the primary historical example I have in mind is that of how the British imperial military behaved during, as opposed to outside, periods of declared warfare against a comparable state adversary.
- emteycz 6y ago
  I thought the US participates in multiple wars right now. I'm not from the US but it is often aaid on HN.
  - quickthrowman 6y ago
    I think they are defining ‘real war’ as ‘total war’. None of the wars the US has been involved in since WWII have required the near-total economic output of our nation to participate in.
    - newacct583 6y ago
      By that standard "total war" doesn't exist any more, the only exceptions I can think of being civil wars in developing nations with negligible GDP.
      - quickthrowman 6y ago
blazespin 6y ago
I am sure that one cell tower that reaches his office is under full surveillance. This all makes sense to me.
laurent92 6y ago
> We also need to tackle the Pentagon’s hermetic closure to civilian talent. It will be hard to convince them after Edward Snowden, a civilian talent, fled with his entire agency’s data ;) More seriously, that may exactly be why they’d need to open up: Civilian talent would see red where there is red, and it would upgrade their security processes. Apart from this, I’m having difficulty imagining an agency without the hurdles quoted by the article: Yes a security clearance is heavy friction in the recruitment/promotion, but it’s hard to do it any other way. However, like Agile after Waterfall, there may be a revolutionary way to do this, which gains so many orders of efficiency that it would make the CIA unbeatable, for much less money. Unfortunately, CIA is in need of neither. Only small countries with limited means and influence (=nothing to lose) can afford to innovate here. Other points raised in the article: - Absence of mobile phone connectivity, wifi, etc, - Top-down management with no brainstorming and no whiteboards (even physically, because they could be spied), - Only traditional army people, fee engineers/new generation kind of jobs. Disclosure: I’m a French national (maybe you’d like to only discuss the Pentagon security between Americans;) ).
i_am_proteus 6y ago
> Three barriers prevent greater flow of talent to the Pentagon from the private sector: an intensely bureaucratic hiring process that usually takes many months, causing interested talent to take jobs elsewhere before the government makes an offer; the strong (in most cases, insurmountable) preference for hiring people who already have security clearances, which virtually guarantees that jobs go to people who are already “in the system” and not from outside; and the lack of a dedicated private-sector talent-recruiting effort. Changing these could make an enormous difference in bringing new ideas and different perspectives to the Pentagon. Making pay more competitive would be great, too, but that is not the primary problem. Many will exchange a certain amount of compensation for a chance to work on vitally important matters and to serve their country, if only the system encouraged their recruitment. The clearance process takes so long that hiring someone without a clearance usually results in a months-long (could be over a year) wait before they can actually start their job. Given that the nature of the job is a key attraction, and the pay is often mediocre compared to private-sector alternatives, this is a losing proposition for many people. It's even worse if the clearance doesn't come through. For many first- or second-generation Americans with family living abroad, this is a distinct possibility. The clearance process is opaque enough, as well, that people who experimented with recreational drugs in college can't be sure if they'll qualify or not. If your clearance doesn't come through, your resume now has a long "hole," and you have to explain to future potential employers that you had to leave your last job because e.g. you have grandparents and cousins in Indonesia or you tried cocaine twice when you were 19. Those risks simply aren't worth it for many people.
iron0013 6y ago
All those hundreds of billions of dollars and they apparently haven’t used any of it to update their IT infrastructure. As a taxpayer, my first thought is: well where did all that money go? The pockets of unaccountable defense industry executives with nothing to show for it?
- Jtsummers 6y ago
  They try to upgrade the infrastructure but it’s not a cohesive effort. And the bureaucracy involved delays things so that now an office may be getting a 2010-state-of-the-art network. They also hijack civilian industry terms and abuse them to the point they can claim to be working like industry without changing a thing.
  - happycube 6y ago
    Heck, it sounds like the military equivalent of an 80's Bloomberg Terminal would be revolutionary.
kevinventullo 6y ago
The author points to three reasons they can’t hire civilians: bureaucratic hiring process, preference for those with security clearance, and no dedicated recruiting pipeline. They also mention the issue of salaries. To me, this does not even scratch the surface. I’m a manager and I regularly wear a t-shirt to work. At no point has anyone called me or have I called anyone “sir”. In fact, everyone just refers to everyone else by their first name, including interns addressing the CEO. Levels are hidden, and good ideas can come from anywhere. There’s no way the Pentagon is making that kind of cultural shift in my lifetime.
- HenryKissinger 6y ago
  I'm not sure that the perfect workplace environment, the culmination of thousands of years of human and civilizational history, is ... for people to wear t-shirts and calling one another by their first name. There is a time and place for everything, and one-size-fits-all models tend to work poorly when applied indiscriminately. The military is a highly codified organization based on cultural hierarchies going back centuries. A little formality has never prevented anyone from doing their job.
  - kevinventullo 6y ago
    T-shirts and first names are symbolic of a culture that recognizes the need for a hierarchy but does not worship at its altar. The point is that if my manager says something which is utterly wrong, I can correct him in the moment and he’ll thank me for it. If I can’t do that, then yes it does prevent me from doing my job. For what it’s worth, I don’t mean to suggest the Pentagon should operate more like SV companies (I don’t really know). I’m just giving it as a reason I personally would not want to work there.
    - mantas 6y ago
      > T-shirts and first names are symbolic of a culture that recognizes the need for a hierarchy but does not worship at its altar Later part is definitely true. But I wouldn't be so sure about the first part. Plenty of people want to throw away any hierarchy out the window.
jarym 6y ago
Maybe this is part of the reason why the Pentagon has a dispensation to continue buying Huawei 5G kit - sounds like they need it!
hindsightbias 6y ago
Well, when it’s only robots doing the killing and getting killed, we can let IT managers run the wars. On meetings, it sounds like a traditional hierarchical mgmt structure. Briefers are a subset of the staff. If members of the staff are unable to get their material or point of view into the powerpoint then they aren’t effective at their jobs or their minority view is not of interest to the majority. That’s where politics and persuasion become important and if you aren’t any good at it you shouldn’t be there. What makes large acquisitions unmanageable is probably feature creep, and software people should certainly be able to relate to that. Imagine every minority view getting their say on every program. We can’t afford ($) that. IMO, the military is not heirarchical enough. The Navy has ~230 Admirals and only some 490 active/reserve ships.
bsanr2 6y ago
As a Navy brat who's spent much of his life on the periphery of the culture described in this article, I find it utterly familiar and darkly amusing. I don't envy the people who will eventually be tasked with changing that culture; there are real security concerns with opening up as the writer describes is necessary. Yet, it is necessary, and the effort will face powerful headwinds from officials who are in no way prepared to separate legitimate concerns from their own obstinacy and bias (e.g., in my brief stint as a contractor [again, admittedly on the periphery], I saw at least two egregious examples of wholly qualified individuals being passed over for promotions, robbing the service of their expertise). The military demands so much from servicepeople, one's center has to be "set", which often means a disconnect between current leaders (who are not to be questioned) and would-be future leaders (who must know when to question anyway), and that's before "politics" come into play.
- jessaustin 6y ago
  Yet, it is necessary... Is it? What would happen if we just put a padlock on the door? Then no one would have to do the hard work of reforming an inflexible organization; they could all just retire. Sure we wouldn't buy any more F-35s, but we have enough bureaucrats and politicians outside the Pentagon that we'd figure out some other way to waste money.
op03 6y ago
Its like watching a replay of the decline of the British Empires War and Colonial Office.
kps 6y ago
Several references to “my office”. Give me that kind of retrograde, please.
C1sc0cat 6y ago
Realy " To access the internet, I had to jack my computer into the wall." yes well even in a declassified space id expect that and have mac filtering. And the death by PowerPoint meme is very widespread in the US military
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
caseysoftware 6y ago
> In my senior-level meetings, roughly 95 percent of the participants were white, 90 percent men. If you believe diversity of experience and perspective improves decision making, this should worry you. At my last startup, the local "accelerator" sent in a diversity consultant. Because the CEO didn't want to deal with it, I was stuck with him. After 10 minutes of me describing how our team of six represented 3 continents including 13 citizenships; we spoke 13 languages; ranged in age from 24 to 48; ranged in education from 3 days of college to dual PhDs; included Christians, a devout Hindu, an atheist, and agnostics; single, married, and even arranged marriage; and our company dinners consisted of us bringing our families together (along with our angel investors and their families) and sharing traditional dishes, the consultant complained that we "weren't diverse" and complained for 20+ minutes on two things: - our team only had one woman - our team didn't have any LGBT representation I threw him out. If you're so closed-minded and ignorant, I don't want you around my team.
- jungturk 6y ago
  There's a difference between having a variety of opinions and having a representative set of opinions. The diversity counselor is likely there to identify opportunities rather than to celebrate present successes. I'm not sure whether the noted points-of-view would be relevant to your team's needs, but pointing out what's under-represented isn't necessarily closed-minded or ignorant (or something to take offense at).
- drewbug 6y ago
  "I identify as a male-presenting transgender lesbian" might have placated him.
- OminousWeapons 6y ago
  To add on, as a bi guy, the idea that who I am having sex with is somehow my employer's business is ridiculous; it shouldn't even be asked about or recorded by a company. The idea that me not being straight at all influences my decision making, reasoning skills, communication skills, aptitude at my job, or anything else having to do with my employment is incredibly offensive.
- 6y ago
travisoneill1 6y ago
Does the added technology really increase productivity that much? Powerpoint slides on a screen aren't really any better than printed. Is having wifi in the office really that much of a productivity gain over a wired connection? I guess you can't move around the office like in SV, but you already can't in most places anyway. Not having cell service in the office is probably a productivity gain. Also, I'm sure the Chinese military is absolutely terrified of our insurmountable diversity advantage.
- threatofrain 6y ago
  The fact that Pentagon leadership is almost completely white is only problematic insofar as the US continues to sport racial diversity within their borders. China has their own way of dealing with racial difficulties which aren't obviously compatible with democratic means.
  - travisoneill1 6y ago
    Oh yeah in the sense that it's a bad idea for cohesion to have a military that looks like officers all race 1, enlisted all race 2, I agree. The idea that it gives an innate advantage over an opposing military of all one race is ridiculous.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - panzagl 6y ago
    'Pentagon leadership' does not run the military in an operational way.
panzagl 6y ago
Pentagon culture is a subculture of the military, an influential one, but hardly as dominant as portrayed. Wifi, cell service and laptops are mostly distractions in an acquisition environment. Being on a source selection is like being on a jury- you're not allowed to do your own research, you have to choose based on the evidence presented. These are rules Congress passes to make sure everything is 'fair', if you want to reform the acquisition process you have to go higher than the poor military stuck implementing the system. The rest of the article is spot on, though the diversity argument is flimsy.

67 points by bill38 6y ago

https://archive.is/UgYQP https://archive.is/UgYQP

>With no connectivity and little diversity, the military's hub may soon be a threat to national security. I guess you have to work in diversity issues to get clicks these days. Shame, could have been an interesting article.

badrabbit 6y ago
Are you saying it's not an issue or are you claiming it is not a national security concern?
- dx87 6y ago
  It's neither an issue, nor a national security concern. All branches of the military actively try to increase the amount of minorities they recruit, and it's just rediculous of the author to claim that a group of people that is primarily one race or gender can't effectively run the military. The military is one of the best ways for someone to escape a bad situation at home, while receiving a paycheck and training that can get them a job once they get out.
  - take_a_breath 6y ago
    If it’s not an issue, why do they “actively try to increase the amount of minorities they recruit?” It seems that their active efforts imply there is an issue.
    - dx87 6y ago
      It's not an issue because of that. The author was implying that the military isn't diverse enough, even though the branches of the military work to ensure they have at least a certain percentage of their forces as minorities.
      - Jtsummers 6y ago
        > The author was implying that the military isn't diverse enough They didn’t imply it. They were pretty explicit. Their concern is that despite the diversity of the military overall it is not reflected at the top.
        dx87 6y ago
        "The top" of the military is very small, and considering the majority of the military is white anyway, it's expected that it'd be mostly white. Anecdotally, I saw much more diverse leadership in the military than I've ever seen in the civilian sector, probably because no matter your background, everyone starts at the bottom in the military.
        recursivecaveat 6y ago
        Is that unexpected? To be secretary of the navy or commander of the marine corps one has to be ~60 with a commission date in the early 80s. In 2060 the 2020 level of diversity in lieutenants should be reflected at the top.
        take_a_breath 6y ago
        ==In 2060 the 2020 level of diversity in lieutenants should be reflected at the top.== Your embedded assumption is that today’s lieutenant diversity reflects the overall military’s diversity of 1980. Is this true?
        recursivecaveat 6y ago
        I am sure the top will not be as diverse as the bottom for centuries due to systemic biases in the promotion process and correlation with other symptoms of inequality. My point is just that you should temper your expectations about responsive change in the end of such a long assembly line.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    can't effectively run the military is a cheap summary of the arguments in the article: If you believe diversity of experience and perspective improves decisionmaking, this should worry you. The secretary of defense needs to revolutionize recruiting, mentoring, and promotion Those are about improving effectiveness (which is optimization, not a binary effective/not effective argument) and management practices.
    - dx87 6y ago
      If the author had stuck to the sentences you quoted, I'd agree. The problem is, they had to throw in the comment about it being a bunch of old white men, as though the color of someone's skin tells you everything you need to know about their background. I'm white, and I frequently got in disagreements with military leadership who were also white because we came from different backgrounds, and had a different perspective, especially regarding the use of technology to enhance effectiveness.
theduder99 6y ago
poor wifi, poor cell service, complaints about standardization around power point, and then launch into some SJW diversity crap. terrible clickbait.
ape4 6y ago
Having people with a variety of backgrounds would help with a bit of understanding of the countries around the world where the military is engaged.
- blantonl 6y ago
  And given that the United States armed forces are incredibly diverse, so should it's representative leadership.
  - ReptileMan 6y ago
    Us armed forces are like 80% white when I skimmed the official data.
    - wongarsu 6y ago
      In case anybody else had to look it up: The US as a whole is 63.3% white (55% for people aged 18-19, 74% for people aged 55-64).
    - cmurf 6y ago
      Looking at "All officers", it's about the same as the civilian workforce. i.e. both armed and civilian work forces under represent black Americans. Enlisted is more diverse than the general population, and officers are less diverse than the general population. https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military

throwanem 6y ago

I don't really find any of this surprising in light of history. A standing army that hasn't fought a real war in a long time just naturally seems to break out in office politics, as the more ordinary paths to promotion and power are unavailable, and the nature of the work shifts over time to mostly what we today call "bullshit jobs". And our standing army hasn't fought a real war in going on eighty years. I agree that it's a problem, and I respect that the intent behind the article is to disclose the problem in a popular forum - or, the choice of forum being Wired, I suppose popular-ish - rather than to analyze and seek solutions. But I'm not sure I see where simple disclosure devoid of context is likely to elicit any useful result. edit, 10:24 EDT: I might have better said "major war" than "real war", but "total war" isn't that far off in the modern period - but the comparison, with periods prior to the modern codification of the total-war concept, I think still holds merit. In any case, asymmetrical actions explicitly do not qualify; the primary historical example I have in mind is that of how the British imperial military behaved during, as opposed to outside, periods of declared warfare against a comparable state adversary.

emteycz 6y ago
I thought the US participates in multiple wars right now. I'm not from the US but it is often aaid on HN.
- quickthrowman 6y ago
  I think they are defining ‘real war’ as ‘total war’. None of the wars the US has been involved in since WWII have required the near-total economic output of our nation to participate in.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    By that standard "total war" doesn't exist any more, the only exceptions I can think of being civil wars in developing nations with negligible GDP.
    - quickthrowman 6y ago

blazespin 6y ago

I am sure that one cell tower that reaches his office is under full surveillance. This all makes sense to me.

laurent92 6y ago

> We also need to tackle the Pentagon’s hermetic closure to civilian talent. It will be hard to convince them after Edward Snowden, a civilian talent, fled with his entire agency’s data ;) More seriously, that may exactly be why they’d need to open up: Civilian talent would see red where there is red, and it would upgrade their security processes. Apart from this, I’m having difficulty imagining an agency without the hurdles quoted by the article: Yes a security clearance is heavy friction in the recruitment/promotion, but it’s hard to do it any other way. However, like Agile after Waterfall, there may be a revolutionary way to do this, which gains so many orders of efficiency that it would make the CIA unbeatable, for much less money. Unfortunately, CIA is in need of neither. Only small countries with limited means and influence (=nothing to lose) can afford to innovate here. Other points raised in the article: - Absence of mobile phone connectivity, wifi, etc, - Top-down management with no brainstorming and no whiteboards (even physically, because they could be spied), - Only traditional army people, fee engineers/new generation kind of jobs. Disclosure: I’m a French national (maybe you’d like to only discuss the Pentagon security between Americans;) ).

i_am_proteus 6y ago

> Three barriers prevent greater flow of talent to the Pentagon from the private sector: an intensely bureaucratic hiring process that usually takes many months, causing interested talent to take jobs elsewhere before the government makes an offer; the strong (in most cases, insurmountable) preference for hiring people who already have security clearances, which virtually guarantees that jobs go to people who are already “in the system” and not from outside; and the lack of a dedicated private-sector talent-recruiting effort. Changing these could make an enormous difference in bringing new ideas and different perspectives to the Pentagon. Making pay more competitive would be great, too, but that is not the primary problem. Many will exchange a certain amount of compensation for a chance to work on vitally important matters and to serve their country, if only the system encouraged their recruitment. The clearance process takes so long that hiring someone without a clearance usually results in a months-long (could be over a year) wait before they can actually start their job. Given that the nature of the job is a key attraction, and the pay is often mediocre compared to private-sector alternatives, this is a losing proposition for many people. It's even worse if the clearance doesn't come through. For many first- or second-generation Americans with family living abroad, this is a distinct possibility. The clearance process is opaque enough, as well, that people who experimented with recreational drugs in college can't be sure if they'll qualify or not. If your clearance doesn't come through, your resume now has a long "hole," and you have to explain to future potential employers that you had to leave your last job because e.g. you have grandparents and cousins in Indonesia or you tried cocaine twice when you were 19. Those risks simply aren't worth it for many people.

iron0013 6y ago

All those hundreds of billions of dollars and they apparently haven’t used any of it to update their IT infrastructure. As a taxpayer, my first thought is: well where did all that money go? The pockets of unaccountable defense industry executives with nothing to show for it?

Jtsummers 6y ago
They try to upgrade the infrastructure but it’s not a cohesive effort. And the bureaucracy involved delays things so that now an office may be getting a 2010-state-of-the-art network. They also hijack civilian industry terms and abuse them to the point they can claim to be working like industry without changing a thing.
- happycube 6y ago
  Heck, it sounds like the military equivalent of an 80's Bloomberg Terminal would be revolutionary.

kevinventullo 6y ago

The author points to three reasons they can’t hire civilians: bureaucratic hiring process, preference for those with security clearance, and no dedicated recruiting pipeline. They also mention the issue of salaries. To me, this does not even scratch the surface. I’m a manager and I regularly wear a t-shirt to work. At no point has anyone called me or have I called anyone “sir”. In fact, everyone just refers to everyone else by their first name, including interns addressing the CEO. Levels are hidden, and good ideas can come from anywhere. There’s no way the Pentagon is making that kind of cultural shift in my lifetime.

HenryKissinger 6y ago
I'm not sure that the perfect workplace environment, the culmination of thousands of years of human and civilizational history, is ... for people to wear t-shirts and calling one another by their first name. There is a time and place for everything, and one-size-fits-all models tend to work poorly when applied indiscriminately. The military is a highly codified organization based on cultural hierarchies going back centuries. A little formality has never prevented anyone from doing their job.
- kevinventullo 6y ago
  T-shirts and first names are symbolic of a culture that recognizes the need for a hierarchy but does not worship at its altar. The point is that if my manager says something which is utterly wrong, I can correct him in the moment and he’ll thank me for it. If I can’t do that, then yes it does prevent me from doing my job. For what it’s worth, I don’t mean to suggest the Pentagon should operate more like SV companies (I don’t really know). I’m just giving it as a reason I personally would not want to work there.
  - mantas 6y ago
    > T-shirts and first names are symbolic of a culture that recognizes the need for a hierarchy but does not worship at its altar Later part is definitely true. But I wouldn't be so sure about the first part. Plenty of people want to throw away any hierarchy out the window.

jarym 6y ago

Maybe this is part of the reason why the Pentagon has a dispensation to continue buying Huawei 5G kit - sounds like they need it!

hindsightbias 6y ago

Well, when it’s only robots doing the killing and getting killed, we can let IT managers run the wars. On meetings, it sounds like a traditional hierarchical mgmt structure. Briefers are a subset of the staff. If members of the staff are unable to get their material or point of view into the powerpoint then they aren’t effective at their jobs or their minority view is not of interest to the majority. That’s where politics and persuasion become important and if you aren’t any good at it you shouldn’t be there. What makes large acquisitions unmanageable is probably feature creep, and software people should certainly be able to relate to that. Imagine every minority view getting their say on every program. We can’t afford ($) that. IMO, the military is not heirarchical enough. The Navy has ~230 Admirals and only some 490 active/reserve ships.

bsanr2 6y ago

As a Navy brat who's spent much of his life on the periphery of the culture described in this article, I find it utterly familiar and darkly amusing. I don't envy the people who will eventually be tasked with changing that culture; there are real security concerns with opening up as the writer describes is necessary. Yet, it is necessary, and the effort will face powerful headwinds from officials who are in no way prepared to separate legitimate concerns from their own obstinacy and bias (e.g., in my brief stint as a contractor [again, admittedly on the periphery], I saw at least two egregious examples of wholly qualified individuals being passed over for promotions, robbing the service of their expertise). The military demands so much from servicepeople, one's center has to be "set", which often means a disconnect between current leaders (who are not to be questioned) and would-be future leaders (who must know when to question anyway), and that's before "politics" come into play.

jessaustin 6y ago
Yet, it is necessary... Is it? What would happen if we just put a padlock on the door? Then no one would have to do the hard work of reforming an inflexible organization; they could all just retire. Sure we wouldn't buy any more F-35s, but we have enough bureaucrats and politicians outside the Pentagon that we'd figure out some other way to waste money.

op03 6y ago

Its like watching a replay of the decline of the British Empires War and Colonial Office.

kps 6y ago

Several references to “my office”. Give me that kind of retrograde, please.

C1sc0cat 6y ago

Realy " To access the internet, I had to jack my computer into the wall." yes well even in a declassified space id expect that and have mac filtering. And the death by PowerPoint meme is very widespread in the US military

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

caseysoftware 6y ago

> In my senior-level meetings, roughly 95 percent of the participants were white, 90 percent men. If you believe diversity of experience and perspective improves decision making, this should worry you. At my last startup, the local "accelerator" sent in a diversity consultant. Because the CEO didn't want to deal with it, I was stuck with him. After 10 minutes of me describing how our team of six represented 3 continents including 13 citizenships; we spoke 13 languages; ranged in age from 24 to 48; ranged in education from 3 days of college to dual PhDs; included Christians, a devout Hindu, an atheist, and agnostics; single, married, and even arranged marriage; and our company dinners consisted of us bringing our families together (along with our angel investors and their families) and sharing traditional dishes, the consultant complained that we "weren't diverse" and complained for 20+ minutes on two things: - our team only had one woman - our team didn't have any LGBT representation I threw him out. If you're so closed-minded and ignorant, I don't want you around my team.

jungturk 6y ago
There's a difference between having a variety of opinions and having a representative set of opinions. The diversity counselor is likely there to identify opportunities rather than to celebrate present successes. I'm not sure whether the noted points-of-view would be relevant to your team's needs, but pointing out what's under-represented isn't necessarily closed-minded or ignorant (or something to take offense at).
drewbug 6y ago
"I identify as a male-presenting transgender lesbian" might have placated him.
OminousWeapons 6y ago
To add on, as a bi guy, the idea that who I am having sex with is somehow my employer's business is ridiculous; it shouldn't even be asked about or recorded by a company. The idea that me not being straight at all influences my decision making, reasoning skills, communication skills, aptitude at my job, or anything else having to do with my employment is incredibly offensive.
6y ago

travisoneill1 6y ago

Does the added technology really increase productivity that much? Powerpoint slides on a screen aren't really any better than printed. Is having wifi in the office really that much of a productivity gain over a wired connection? I guess you can't move around the office like in SV, but you already can't in most places anyway. Not having cell service in the office is probably a productivity gain. Also, I'm sure the Chinese military is absolutely terrified of our insurmountable diversity advantage.

threatofrain 6y ago
The fact that Pentagon leadership is almost completely white is only problematic insofar as the US continues to sport racial diversity within their borders. China has their own way of dealing with racial difficulties which aren't obviously compatible with democratic means.
- travisoneill1 6y ago
  Oh yeah in the sense that it's a bad idea for cohesion to have a military that looks like officers all race 1, enlisted all race 2, I agree. The idea that it gives an innate advantage over an opposing military of all one race is ridiculous.
  - deleted 6y ago
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- panzagl 6y ago
  'Pentagon leadership' does not run the military in an operational way.

panzagl 6y ago

Pentagon culture is a subculture of the military, an influential one, but hardly as dominant as portrayed. Wifi, cell service and laptops are mostly distractions in an acquisition environment. Being on a source selection is like being on a jury- you're not allowed to do your own research, you have to choose based on the evidence presented. These are rules Congress passes to make sure everything is 'fair', if you want to reform the acquisition process you have to go higher than the poor military stuck implementing the system. The rest of the article is spot on, though the diversity argument is flimsy.