7 ms·

One of my favorite books is Slack, and I have this quote highlighted: "There is no such thing as healthy competition within a knowledge organization; all intern

One of my favorite books is Slack, and I have this quote highlighted: "There is no such thing as healthy competition within a knowledge organization; all internal competition is destructive." One anecdote I faced once was talking to a senior engineer at a FAANG company who was complaining that he just discovered another organization building the identical product his team had spent over a year on, saying that management was so disorganized it must have not realized it. A couple weeks later I happened to talk to a VP up his chain of command, and mentioned this to him, and he chuckled and said "oh yeah that's by design, I'd rather have internal competition than external, it's worth the cost". Was a good reminder for me to avoid large companies.

lainga 5y ago
That was also the policy of the Third Reich at multiple levels. Give overlapping tasks to competing organisations. Let the strongest win
- kqr 5y ago
  Wasn't this also (primarily?) a way to prevent disloyalty to the Führer, by making it seem impossible to form alliances at lower levels?
  - somedude895 5y ago
    Yes, that's exactly what it was. Keep them squibbling among each other so they wouldn't get any ideas of disposing of him. At least that's the consensus nowadays. Not sure if there's any proof of his intent.
- wildmanx 5y ago
  It's been reported that it's the Trump management style as well. Both in business as well as among his kids as well as the WH. (Not drawing other parallels to nazis here, please don't accuse me of that.)
tshaddox 5y ago
I suppose from the perspective of those higher up the chain of command, it’s not much different than acquiring competing companies as soon as possible.
- wildmanx 5y ago
  It's the exact opposite. If you acquire a competing company, you ideally assimilate the employee work force and integrate them into your organization. You welcome them and make them feel home from day one. At least those that you keep. There are likely a few that you let go. But it's really important not to get hard feelings in there, 2-tier engineering, internal competition. I'd quit immediately any organization that doesn't understand this.
kamaal 5y ago
>>Was a good reminder for me to avoid large companies. Unless your definition of small companies is just one person. This doesn't stand. There is internal competition every where. In fact internal competition looks like a nice name to describe a more maligned name politics.
- Ozzie_osman 5y ago
  I think it does. I'm not just talking about politics here, though I do think company size and level of politics are correlated. I'm talking about purposefully designed internal competition. That's very rare to see at smaller companies.
  - kqr 5y ago
    Individual sales bonuses/commission are an example of purposefully designed internal competition common at smaller companies.
codingwageslave 5y ago
Yeah if it’s an important project they don’t want to bet on only one team. Redundancy
8note 5y ago
"2 is better than none, 1 is better than 2" is an amazon refrain. 2 is still pretty good for a lot of things though. Specifically, the features and changes you need from the thing can be prioritized
- vishnugupta 5y ago
  > 2 is still pretty good for a lot of things though. It doesn't stop at 2. When I left Amazon about a decade ago there were at least half a dozen digital money services/products. Each vertical (retail, 3-p retail, Kindle, Gaming etc.,) all had their own stored-value service managing a slightly different version of the same digital money (gift-card, merchant balance, game coins). The feature sets overlapped ~95%. It may well turn out alright for the company but if you are an engineer or manager tasked with building yet another such service it's no fun at all.
  - laurent92 5y ago
    The finance industry has the 6-eye principle. Which is a problem when the average of eyes per person is 1.99.
- mellavora 5y ago
  "Two is one, and one is none" is a phrase I've heard for critical survival equipment in several contexts. For example two regulators when scuba diving, two tie-offs when securing gear to a pack,
  - ClumsyPilot 5y ago
    Right, but my two backup generators are not competing, the example seems inappropriate
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    I'm sure Boeing can tell you all about critical systems competing
    - 5y ago
logicchains 5y ago
> A couple weeks later I happened to talk to a VP up his chain of command, and mentioned this to him, and he chuckled and said "oh yeah that's by design, I'd rather have internal competition than external, it's worth the cost". Was a good reminder for me to avoid large companies. Rather than just outright dismissing what he said without any justification, did you consider that he actually had evidence/experience that it indeed did reduce the cost? In terms of risk in particular, having two teams work on the same product significantly reduces the chance of not having a viable product by the deadline. Assuming e.g. a 50% chance of failure, having two teams reduces this chance to 25%.
- muro 5y ago
  Agree on sometimes having good reasons. Not just time to market, but also different approach. As long as in the end only the better one is shipped and the "losing" team is managed well through the decision, it could be a win.
  - WJW 5y ago
    There can be good reasons for redundancy, like you mentioned. I think that not even telling different teams about the others working on the same thing goes a bit far though. Eventually people will find out anyway and then they will feel like management has lied to them. The fallout of that situation will probably more than erase the benefits from having multiple teams.
    - muro 5y ago
      Agreed, how the redundancy is managed and clear reasons for it (time to market, risky bets etc) are key.
- kqr 5y ago
  > Assuming e.g. a 50% chance of failure, having two teams reduces this chance to 25%. ...if failure is independent, sure. Not only is independence generally a dangerous assumption, but in particular when it comes to software engineering, it's been shown that problems are not independent. I don't have the reference at hand, but if I did, I could show you that completely separate teams tend to make the same mistakes.
vishnugupta 5y ago
> A couple weeks later I happened to talk to a VP up his chain of command, and mentioned this to him, and he chuckled and said "oh yeah that's by design, I'd rather have internal competition than external, it's worth the cost". Was a good reminder for me to avoid large companies. I had the exact same interaction with a VPish person. The concern in my tone didn't even register with him. He said, let them all build, and may the best tool/service/library win. There is no such thing as healthy competition; it always tends to get vicious and ends up really badly for one of the teams.
pjmlp 5y ago
I remember reading somewhere that Bill Gates once said that Microsoft would rather pay for developers to do nothing at Microsoft, than having them leave and work for the competition.
- bena 5y ago
  That's how I view my employment. My company does not pay me to work for them. They pay me to not work for anyone else, including myself.
Sharlin 5y ago
I believe that a management culture where teams and projects had to compete against each other was also one of the causes of the downfall of Nokia’s phone empire.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
There is some nuance thats being lost here. If all competition withing an organisation is destructive, is it still destructive if it happens withing parliament? Thats a single organisation that needs to get things done. What about withing a government or a political party? What about withing a country, is that not an organisation? Organisation is not defined by the payroll department after all
blntechie 5y ago
I remember reading from a Googler somewhere that exactly how Google Pay was built. Several regions were asked to build Google Pay product and finally the version built for India by Singapore team won so Google made that as the default version to everyone. And I guess many from original US Pay team quit or went to other projects or something like that.

lainga 5y ago

That was also the policy of the Third Reich at multiple levels. Give overlapping tasks to competing organisations. Let the strongest win

kqr 5y ago
Wasn't this also (primarily?) a way to prevent disloyalty to the Führer, by making it seem impossible to form alliances at lower levels?
- somedude895 5y ago
  Yes, that's exactly what it was. Keep them squibbling among each other so they wouldn't get any ideas of disposing of him. At least that's the consensus nowadays. Not sure if there's any proof of his intent.
wildmanx 5y ago
It's been reported that it's the Trump management style as well. Both in business as well as among his kids as well as the WH. (Not drawing other parallels to nazis here, please don't accuse me of that.)

tshaddox 5y ago

I suppose from the perspective of those higher up the chain of command, it’s not much different than acquiring competing companies as soon as possible.

wildmanx 5y ago
It's the exact opposite. If you acquire a competing company, you ideally assimilate the employee work force and integrate them into your organization. You welcome them and make them feel home from day one. At least those that you keep. There are likely a few that you let go. But it's really important not to get hard feelings in there, 2-tier engineering, internal competition. I'd quit immediately any organization that doesn't understand this.

kamaal 5y ago

>>Was a good reminder for me to avoid large companies. Unless your definition of small companies is just one person. This doesn't stand. There is internal competition every where. In fact internal competition looks like a nice name to describe a more maligned name politics.

Ozzie_osman 5y ago
I think it does. I'm not just talking about politics here, though I do think company size and level of politics are correlated. I'm talking about purposefully designed internal competition. That's very rare to see at smaller companies.
- kqr 5y ago
  Individual sales bonuses/commission are an example of purposefully designed internal competition common at smaller companies.

codingwageslave 5y ago

Yeah if it’s an important project they don’t want to bet on only one team. Redundancy

8note 5y ago

"2 is better than none, 1 is better than 2" is an amazon refrain. 2 is still pretty good for a lot of things though. Specifically, the features and changes you need from the thing can be prioritized

vishnugupta 5y ago
> 2 is still pretty good for a lot of things though. It doesn't stop at 2. When I left Amazon about a decade ago there were at least half a dozen digital money services/products. Each vertical (retail, 3-p retail, Kindle, Gaming etc.,) all had their own stored-value service managing a slightly different version of the same digital money (gift-card, merchant balance, game coins). The feature sets overlapped ~95%. It may well turn out alright for the company but if you are an engineer or manager tasked with building yet another such service it's no fun at all.
- laurent92 5y ago
  The finance industry has the 6-eye principle. Which is a problem when the average of eyes per person is 1.99.
mellavora 5y ago
"Two is one, and one is none" is a phrase I've heard for critical survival equipment in several contexts. For example two regulators when scuba diving, two tie-offs when securing gear to a pack,
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago
  Right, but my two backup generators are not competing, the example seems inappropriate
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  I'm sure Boeing can tell you all about critical systems competing
  - 5y ago

logicchains 5y ago

> A couple weeks later I happened to talk to a VP up his chain of command, and mentioned this to him, and he chuckled and said "oh yeah that's by design, I'd rather have internal competition than external, it's worth the cost". Was a good reminder for me to avoid large companies. Rather than just outright dismissing what he said without any justification, did you consider that he actually had evidence/experience that it indeed did reduce the cost? In terms of risk in particular, having two teams work on the same product significantly reduces the chance of not having a viable product by the deadline. Assuming e.g. a 50% chance of failure, having two teams reduces this chance to 25%.

muro 5y ago
Agree on sometimes having good reasons. Not just time to market, but also different approach. As long as in the end only the better one is shipped and the "losing" team is managed well through the decision, it could be a win.
- WJW 5y ago
  There can be good reasons for redundancy, like you mentioned. I think that not even telling different teams about the others working on the same thing goes a bit far though. Eventually people will find out anyway and then they will feel like management has lied to them. The fallout of that situation will probably more than erase the benefits from having multiple teams.
  - muro 5y ago
    Agreed, how the redundancy is managed and clear reasons for it (time to market, risky bets etc) are key.
kqr 5y ago
> Assuming e.g. a 50% chance of failure, having two teams reduces this chance to 25%. ...if failure is independent, sure. Not only is independence generally a dangerous assumption, but in particular when it comes to software engineering, it's been shown that problems are not independent. I don't have the reference at hand, but if I did, I could show you that completely separate teams tend to make the same mistakes.

vishnugupta 5y ago

> A couple weeks later I happened to talk to a VP up his chain of command, and mentioned this to him, and he chuckled and said "oh yeah that's by design, I'd rather have internal competition than external, it's worth the cost". Was a good reminder for me to avoid large companies. I had the exact same interaction with a VPish person. The concern in my tone didn't even register with him. He said, let them all build, and may the best tool/service/library win. There is no such thing as healthy competition; it always tends to get vicious and ends up really badly for one of the teams.

pjmlp 5y ago

I remember reading somewhere that Bill Gates once said that Microsoft would rather pay for developers to do nothing at Microsoft, than having them leave and work for the competition.

bena 5y ago
That's how I view my employment. My company does not pay me to work for them. They pay me to not work for anyone else, including myself.

Sharlin 5y ago

I believe that a management culture where teams and projects had to compete against each other was also one of the causes of the downfall of Nokia’s phone empire.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

There is some nuance thats being lost here. If all competition withing an organisation is destructive, is it still destructive if it happens withing parliament? Thats a single organisation that needs to get things done. What about withing a government or a political party? What about withing a country, is that not an organisation? Organisation is not defined by the payroll department after all

blntechie 5y ago

I remember reading from a Googler somewhere that exactly how Google Pay was built. Several regions were asked to build Google Pay product and finally the version built for India by Singapore team won so Google made that as the default version to everyone. And I guess many from original US Pay team quit or went to other projects or something like that.