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>I heard rumors that the CEO was making two separate teams work [. . .] separately, competing against each other. I don't work in tech, so maybe I'm dumb to th

>I heard rumors that the CEO was making two separate teams work [. . .] separately, competing against each other. I don't work in tech, so maybe I'm dumb to this, but why would you ever do this?

rossipedia 6y ago
This is not surprising to me at all. IMO, the CEO had a bit of a Steve Jobs hero-worship complex, but only all the bad parts. I can absolutely see him putting two teams on the same project, and "may the best product win". The team that "lost" would get canned, obviously (I saw it happen to two separate offices while I was there).
- tablespoon 6y ago
  > IMO, the CEO had a bit of a Steve Jobs hero-worship complex, but only all the bad parts. Part of me wishes Steve Jobs had never been brought back to Apple and died in obscurity. He's such a bad example. People idolize him, but his good parts can't be imitated, his bad parts can, and a lot of people can't seem to tell the difference.
  - letitbeirie 6y ago
    > his good parts can't be imitated Without dropping acid at work at least, but that seems to be frowned upon these days.
jakeva 6y ago
I imagine it comes from some flawed business belief in the survival of the fittest. I've never heard a tech person advocate for it, I only ever hear it from business types.
- Silhouette 6y ago
  Of the things I've seen reportedly happening at Ubiquiti, that one makes more sense than some. Businesses put projects out to tender all the time, and other businesses that can provide what is wanted invest sometimes very considerable resources into putting in a bid, knowing that if they don't make the winning bid then those resources will mostly likely be completely wasted. Evidently it is still worth operating a business on that basis because the benefits when you do win outweigh the costs of the failed bids, and those costs might include reducing morale in a team who worked on a failed bid. If that is the case across industries as a whole then economically it might make sense for a business to operate on the same basis internally for their Next Big Thing. Run multiple independent teams at the start, give them all the same brief, then see which team comes up with the most promising starting point. I don't see much of an argument for continuing the internal competition beyond the concept to prototype stage, though, unless perhaps it turned out that more than one team could produce a product that was viable in its own right without competing for the same market.
fletchowns 6y ago
Isn't Oracle notorious for doing this?
gralx 6y ago
Intel tried this too, according to an ex-Intel employee here. It's a management strategy intended to get the best result by inspiring competition. The problems it invites are the obvious, but the tradeoff may be justified in some scenarios. It's also the premise of David Mamet's famous play Glengarry Glen Ross.
aspaceman 6y ago
There’s an infamous anecdote with Jobs doing this. Tharanos had the same “two teams” story. A lot of CEOs who think they’re the next Steve Jobs, don’t understand their own tech, and presume the solution to their technical problems is a lack of “motivation”. Creating a skilled skunk works team to handle a critical problem is a great idea. Making two? And putting them in conflict? It’s like throwing your a steak to your dogs to have them fight over dinner. Idiocy.
g_p 6y ago
Google certainly seems to do this when it comes to chat applications. Ironically though, they've actually (arguably) lost marketshare - they went from gtalk being pretty widely used (in the late 2000s, early 2010s, as Android took off), to having a confused and fragmented ecosystem (Allo, Duo, Hangouts, Chat, Messaging), and it seems none of those have the same market penetration as the original did. Perhaps internal competition to that extent simply confuses customers?
- takeda 6y ago
  They essentially destroyed all competition (AIM, YIM, ICQ, MSN etc), the open source solution that would standardize chat (XMPP) and themselves. Making people just go and use proprietary solution like WhatsUp. XMPP was so promising.
  - Zash 6y ago
    Psst, hey, XMPP isn't quite dead yet! Some of us never stopped working on it. Come help bring it back into the hype!
roland35 6y ago
I can see why the idea is tempting, ie testing multiple strategies and survival of the fittest. But in reality there are extreme downsides. Teams will lie and fudge data to get ahead. People dont trust their coworkers. I think this is where strong technical leadership is needed. At some point someone needs to make a decision on the technical direction and have the conviction to stick with it.

>I heard rumors that the CEO was making two separate teams work [. . .] separately, competing against each other. I don't work in tech, so maybe I'm dumb to this, but why would you ever do this?

rossipedia 6y ago

This is not surprising to me at all. IMO, the CEO had a bit of a Steve Jobs hero-worship complex, but only all the bad parts. I can absolutely see him putting two teams on the same project, and "may the best product win". The team that "lost" would get canned, obviously (I saw it happen to two separate offices while I was there).

tablespoon 6y ago
> IMO, the CEO had a bit of a Steve Jobs hero-worship complex, but only all the bad parts. Part of me wishes Steve Jobs had never been brought back to Apple and died in obscurity. He's such a bad example. People idolize him, but his good parts can't be imitated, his bad parts can, and a lot of people can't seem to tell the difference.
- letitbeirie 6y ago
  > his good parts can't be imitated Without dropping acid at work at least, but that seems to be frowned upon these days.

jakeva 6y ago

I imagine it comes from some flawed business belief in the survival of the fittest. I've never heard a tech person advocate for it, I only ever hear it from business types.

Silhouette 6y ago
Of the things I've seen reportedly happening at Ubiquiti, that one makes more sense than some. Businesses put projects out to tender all the time, and other businesses that can provide what is wanted invest sometimes very considerable resources into putting in a bid, knowing that if they don't make the winning bid then those resources will mostly likely be completely wasted. Evidently it is still worth operating a business on that basis because the benefits when you do win outweigh the costs of the failed bids, and those costs might include reducing morale in a team who worked on a failed bid. If that is the case across industries as a whole then economically it might make sense for a business to operate on the same basis internally for their Next Big Thing. Run multiple independent teams at the start, give them all the same brief, then see which team comes up with the most promising starting point. I don't see much of an argument for continuing the internal competition beyond the concept to prototype stage, though, unless perhaps it turned out that more than one team could produce a product that was viable in its own right without competing for the same market.

fletchowns 6y ago

Isn't Oracle notorious for doing this?

gralx 6y ago

Intel tried this too, according to an ex-Intel employee here. It's a management strategy intended to get the best result by inspiring competition. The problems it invites are the obvious, but the tradeoff may be justified in some scenarios. It's also the premise of David Mamet's famous play Glengarry Glen Ross.

aspaceman 6y ago

There’s an infamous anecdote with Jobs doing this. Tharanos had the same “two teams” story. A lot of CEOs who think they’re the next Steve Jobs, don’t understand their own tech, and presume the solution to their technical problems is a lack of “motivation”. Creating a skilled skunk works team to handle a critical problem is a great idea. Making two? And putting them in conflict? It’s like throwing your a steak to your dogs to have them fight over dinner. Idiocy.

g_p 6y ago

Google certainly seems to do this when it comes to chat applications. Ironically though, they've actually (arguably) lost marketshare - they went from gtalk being pretty widely used (in the late 2000s, early 2010s, as Android took off), to having a confused and fragmented ecosystem (Allo, Duo, Hangouts, Chat, Messaging), and it seems none of those have the same market penetration as the original did. Perhaps internal competition to that extent simply confuses customers?

takeda 6y ago
They essentially destroyed all competition (AIM, YIM, ICQ, MSN etc), the open source solution that would standardize chat (XMPP) and themselves. Making people just go and use proprietary solution like WhatsUp. XMPP was so promising.
- Zash 6y ago
  Psst, hey, XMPP isn't quite dead yet! Some of us never stopped working on it. Come help bring it back into the hype!

roland35 6y ago

I can see why the idea is tempting, ie testing multiple strategies and survival of the fittest. But in reality there are extreme downsides. Teams will lie and fudge data to get ahead. People dont trust their coworkers. I think this is where strong technical leadership is needed. At some point someone needs to make a decision on the technical direction and have the conviction to stick with it.