4 ms·

How can so many highly-paid and bright employees routinely fuck up products so terribly and so often? It boggles the mind.

indy 6y ago
It might be because of the "so many" part.
jayd16 6y ago
I wonder what the product manager hiring process and role is like at Google. Leet-code doesn't necessarily help you maintain a healthy product road map.
cambalache 6y ago
Many (not all) of those kids are great at playing the "getting credentials" games, not so good at the "let's make a great product" game. The objectives are not 100% aligned either.
onion2k 6y ago
A significant problem with intelligent people is that they're repeatedly told they're good at everything throughout their early life, but being clever doesn't automatically make you good at everything. Some things take experience and knowledge that takes years to attain. Tech is full of people who did well at school, went to a good university and did great, and then went to work at a tech company. They have no experience of the world outside of their very limited experiences. But they don't realise that. So they fuck products up a lot because outside of tech people couldn't give a damn about the same things clever nerds give a damn about. The reason I know this is because I was the same. I did well at school, did well at university, got good jobs in tech, and then tried to do a startup and failed hard because I wasn't nearly as clever as I thought I was, and I had completely misunderstood the product I tried to make. It was quite the lesson.
remir 6y ago
In my opinion, being clever or "bright" means having high intellect, retaining information and making the necessary mind connections, but it doesn't automatically means intelligence. You can be considered bright by other people or some metrics, yet make very poor life choices.
gerash 6y ago
Being good at math and physics for example doesn't make you good at HCI. I learned this by being forced to take an HCI course in grad school and learning how much I didn't know about the area. Another problem is again wrong incentives. If a product usage isn't in the hundreds of millions the management usually does the "move fast, break things, launch the new thing, get promoted, switch teams, rinse and repeat" approach which is a time tested strategy.

indy 6y ago

It might be because of the "so many" part.

jayd16 6y ago

I wonder what the product manager hiring process and role is like at Google. Leet-code doesn't necessarily help you maintain a healthy product road map.

cambalache 6y ago

Many (not all) of those kids are great at playing the "getting credentials" games, not so good at the "let's make a great product" game. The objectives are not 100% aligned either.

onion2k 6y ago

A significant problem with intelligent people is that they're repeatedly told they're good at everything throughout their early life, but being clever doesn't automatically make you good at everything. Some things take experience and knowledge that takes years to attain. Tech is full of people who did well at school, went to a good university and did great, and then went to work at a tech company. They have no experience of the world outside of their very limited experiences. But they don't realise that. So they fuck products up a lot because outside of tech people couldn't give a damn about the same things clever nerds give a damn about. The reason I know this is because I was the same. I did well at school, did well at university, got good jobs in tech, and then tried to do a startup and failed hard because I wasn't nearly as clever as I thought I was, and I had completely misunderstood the product I tried to make. It was quite the lesson.

remir 6y ago

In my opinion, being clever or "bright" means having high intellect, retaining information and making the necessary mind connections, but it doesn't automatically means intelligence. You can be considered bright by other people or some metrics, yet make very poor life choices.

gerash 6y ago

Being good at math and physics for example doesn't make you good at HCI. I learned this by being forced to take an HCI course in grad school and learning how much I didn't know about the area. Another problem is again wrong incentives. If a product usage isn't in the hundreds of millions the management usually does the "move fast, break things, launch the new thing, get promoted, switch teams, rinse and repeat" approach which is a time tested strategy.