5 ms·

They do not go bust, they just find ways to bilk their employees, or customers, or the general public, or they find a way to make the government nanny them by s

They do not go bust, they just find ways to bilk their employees, or customers, or the general public, or they find a way to make the government nanny them by shredding regulations or what not. You seem to think that people cannot escape the consequences of their actions, and that consequences arrive swiftly and fairly. But I should think a quick look around the world we actually live in will disabuse you of that notion in short order. Especially when it comes to gigantic centres of power with vast reserves of cash and well protected revenue streams. And if you've worked in any tech company, you've probably already seen that the people who coast do not "hide in corners" they make up an entire class, called "management", especially "middle management", they're front and centre because they have no productive work to do so they can devote the majority of their time to extravagant displays justifying their existence and their elevated positions and compensation.

hnick 4y ago
One place I worked, was a Big Company providing overpriced services to other Big Companies. There were loads of low skilled IT workers, taking too long, making mistakes. Adding a BA and/or PM to drive every project when a competent dev could've done it solo a few years ago. But when you keep getting issues, you keep adding process and now every job is 1000+ hours. But eventually the work got done and we kept getting work because Big Companies buy from other Big Companies. You're not going to risk tendering to a 3 man office who gets it done faster, cheaper, better because if it doesn't happen questions will be asked. Unfortunately there are a lot of talented small businesses out there but they just don't get the work due to this.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  Do that enough, and Big Corp gets overtaken by a smaller, nimbler company that does better. See the book "The Innovators Dilemma" for one aspect of this.
  - scaramanga 4y ago
    Not if they are competent at building moats.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      Big Companies today are not the same Big Companies of yesterday. There is constant churn at the top. The ones at the top today are all newish companies.
  - hnick 4y ago
    Which Big Corp though? The provider or the consumer? The dilemma is, this all feels like a bit of a Boy's Club where they all agree to just help each other and ignore the little people. Not always formally, it's just how things work out. They have an interest in maintaining the status quo and ignoring upstart-startups. Of course, eventually yes it's impossible to ignore the value gap. But I've seen companies threaten to leave but keep paying the bills for many years because in a big company, it's not really anyone's problem in particular and it's easier to just keep going along to get along. One example we had was B2C email communications, there are so many cheaper more capable players out there but they just got us to do it because we did other stuff for them.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      > this all feels like a bit of a Boy's Club where they all agree to just help each other Come on. They often try to sue each other out of business, get the government to declare competition illegal, "cut off their air supply", "knife their baby", etc. > because we did other stuff for them There you go. Not because of the goodness of their hearts.
WalterBright 4y ago
Companies go bust all the time. One of the corporations I've worked for simply disappeared (Data I/O). Corporations disappear all the time. Remember RCA? No? How about Kmart? Sears? Kodak? Tektronix? Novell? Lotus? Wordstar? AOL? Zilog? Myspace? Zenith? Curtis-Mathis? RCA was once the biggest corp in the world. I've known people in every corporation I've worked for who accomplished nothing and were not managers. I was often given the job of trying to turn whatever they did into something useful. Everybody knew who they were. I remember one person, we'll call "Smith". "Smith" would check in code, and it was always so bad that someone else would have to redo the whole thing. After a while, the term "smith-code" became a generic term for code that was worse than nothing. How bad can you be that your name becomes a generic term for useless work? "Smith" eventually got laid off. The team was relieved.
- scaramanga 4y ago
  Sure, I was imprecise, I mean, they do not necessarily go bust. And even if they do, it can be delayed by decades, even centuries, by techniques that are too numerous and well known to list here. I've known a few Smith's in my time, one thing they all had in common was the protection of a manager who had no interest in the quality of Smith's work, as long as Smith would take his side in any disputes. When the consequences became too great, the manager would suddenly understand the problem and approve the minimum of changes to fix it, while taking credit for the work. Smith would not complain about this slight because he understood the nature of the transaction. Edit: btw. congrats getting rid of your Smith, these people can be very difficult to dislodge. Presumably your guy did not have the protection of a manager.
- Nick87633 4y ago
  Tektronix didn't go bust. It was acquired for $2.8b in 2007 with 4,000 employees and is now part of an umbrella corporation that trades as NYSE:FTV. Their scopes are still for sale and still good.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    You're right, I thought I'd remembered they'd gone bust. > part of an umbrella corporation meaning their former glory is gone. When I was starting out Tektronix was a very big deal in computers and electronics. I haven't even heard their name in 20-30 years.

hnick 4y ago

One place I worked, was a Big Company providing overpriced services to other Big Companies. There were loads of low skilled IT workers, taking too long, making mistakes. Adding a BA and/or PM to drive every project when a competent dev could've done it solo a few years ago. But when you keep getting issues, you keep adding process and now every job is 1000+ hours. But eventually the work got done and we kept getting work because Big Companies buy from other Big Companies. You're not going to risk tendering to a 3 man office who gets it done faster, cheaper, better because if it doesn't happen questions will be asked. Unfortunately there are a lot of talented small businesses out there but they just don't get the work due to this.

WalterBright 4y ago
Do that enough, and Big Corp gets overtaken by a smaller, nimbler company that does better. See the book "The Innovators Dilemma" for one aspect of this.
- scaramanga 4y ago
  Not if they are competent at building moats.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    Big Companies today are not the same Big Companies of yesterday. There is constant churn at the top. The ones at the top today are all newish companies.
- hnick 4y ago
  Which Big Corp though? The provider or the consumer? The dilemma is, this all feels like a bit of a Boy's Club where they all agree to just help each other and ignore the little people. Not always formally, it's just how things work out. They have an interest in maintaining the status quo and ignoring upstart-startups. Of course, eventually yes it's impossible to ignore the value gap. But I've seen companies threaten to leave but keep paying the bills for many years because in a big company, it's not really anyone's problem in particular and it's easier to just keep going along to get along. One example we had was B2C email communications, there are so many cheaper more capable players out there but they just got us to do it because we did other stuff for them.
  - WalterBright 4y ago
    > this all feels like a bit of a Boy's Club where they all agree to just help each other Come on. They often try to sue each other out of business, get the government to declare competition illegal, "cut off their air supply", "knife their baby", etc. > because we did other stuff for them There you go. Not because of the goodness of their hearts.

WalterBright 4y ago

Companies go bust all the time. One of the corporations I've worked for simply disappeared (Data I/O). Corporations disappear all the time. Remember RCA? No? How about Kmart? Sears? Kodak? Tektronix? Novell? Lotus? Wordstar? AOL? Zilog? Myspace? Zenith? Curtis-Mathis? RCA was once the biggest corp in the world. I've known people in every corporation I've worked for who accomplished nothing and were not managers. I was often given the job of trying to turn whatever they did into something useful. Everybody knew who they were. I remember one person, we'll call "Smith". "Smith" would check in code, and it was always so bad that someone else would have to redo the whole thing. After a while, the term "smith-code" became a generic term for code that was worse than nothing. How bad can you be that your name becomes a generic term for useless work? "Smith" eventually got laid off. The team was relieved.

scaramanga 4y ago
Sure, I was imprecise, I mean, they do not necessarily go bust. And even if they do, it can be delayed by decades, even centuries, by techniques that are too numerous and well known to list here. I've known a few Smith's in my time, one thing they all had in common was the protection of a manager who had no interest in the quality of Smith's work, as long as Smith would take his side in any disputes. When the consequences became too great, the manager would suddenly understand the problem and approve the minimum of changes to fix it, while taking credit for the work. Smith would not complain about this slight because he understood the nature of the transaction. Edit: btw. congrats getting rid of your Smith, these people can be very difficult to dislodge. Presumably your guy did not have the protection of a manager.
Nick87633 4y ago
Tektronix didn't go bust. It was acquired for $2.8b in 2007 with 4,000 employees and is now part of an umbrella corporation that trades as NYSE:FTV. Their scopes are still for sale and still good.
- WalterBright 4y ago
  You're right, I thought I'd remembered they'd gone bust. > part of an umbrella corporation meaning their former glory is gone. When I was starting out Tektronix was a very big deal in computers and electronics. I haven't even heard their name in 20-30 years.