5 ms·

Here's an additional option: maybe the person who they hired to do "it" never really knew how to do "it" in the first place, and was really good at selling them

Here's an additional option: maybe the person who they hired to do "it" never really knew how to do "it" in the first place, and was really good at selling themselves and overpromising and underdelvering, being really good at avoiding personal blame and making sure that any failures were attributed to the organization and not themselves personally. Basically, fakers. There are a surprising number of fakers at the C-level and VP-level who manage to hop from one organization to another, at best providing little benefit, but at worst leaving a destructive wake. Nonetheless management keeps hiring these fakers because others have done so before, and they need "it". Fakers cover their tracks by making sure to not stay at any one place too long, and hiring people below them to actually do the hard work, take over the mess (and responsibility). I wouldn't assume the people that management bring in are any more competent than management themselves. It's unfortunate but there are many serial fakers operating as COOs, CMOs, CIOs, VP Marketing, VP Product Development, VP Business Development, and a smattering of high-sounding but low authority titles such as Chief Innovation Officer, Chief "AI" Officer, and even sadly, too many Chief Data Officers. Those are the sorts of folks who tend to bring in these "playbooks" that look like they can solve the "it" problems but are all smoke and no fire.

Foobar8568 4y ago
Because at these levels, it's not about what you can do, but how you manage politics. From a technical point of view, most of these people are useless and a waste.
- rexreed 4y ago
  At those levels, unfortunately, they have both budget and authority, as well as the ability to impact culture and the definition and prioritization of teams and their work. Sort of like military generals who get their ranks not by proven experience but by working the chain of command, to the great detriment of those who actually have to face the fire.
- bonoboTP 4y ago
  Politics arises whenever people come together. It's comfortable to think that we can simply encapsulate "politics" as such, as something for the stupid people and we the enlightened rational technical people don't concern ourselves with "politics" but unfortunately one cannot simply wish it out of existence. Politics is just a label attached to human behavior. Put 3 people together and you will have "drama" (politics on the small scale). Better learn how to understand people's motivations and incentives instead of bitterly dismissing confusing human behavior as "politics".
  - omginternets 4y ago
    Agreed. Moreover, the parent poster is overlooking that in a well functioning engineering organization, political influence is at least partly a function of competence.
    - swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
      Competence at politics is orthogonal to usefulness to the company. Often times incentives can push politics in self-destructive ways to the organization.
    - bonoboTP 4y ago
      Right, HN tends to be very bitter and depressive about dysfunction. Of course it's selection bias too, we talk more about our complaints than our joys. But it's a very gloomy view to think that anyone who rises in an organization does so through psychopathic manipulation and passing on the hot potato then through pure bullshitting, woos the higher ups and catapults up the ladder via promotion. And that any value is always created by some last-in-line loser who got the hot potato passed on, and his work is never noticed or credited. If this were true, you wouldn't see anything get done. Yet, widgets roll off conveyor belts and products are shipped. The system is never perfect, and there is always some misjudgment of who contributes usefully and who is a pure talker. To solve large-scale problems, we have to join forces with other humans. But we can't see into each other's head, so there will be mistakes and opportunities to exploit mistakes. At the end of the day, boundaries must be drawn. There will be conflict of interests. There is conflict between the aggregate interest of the group and interests of the participants. There are ways to coordinate these, but the effect can't be fully eliminated. Inside any harmony on a large scale, you find conflict on a smaller scale. Even a mother and her fetus are in some senses competing for resources and the mother must biologically protect herself from exploitative behavior of the fetus (this objectively happens in biology). These things are more like laws of "nature" than something to be "angry" about. It's like game theory. The behavior of individual people may be up for judgment but the collective is predictable. You can't ascribe it to individual moral failure when you consistently observe it across organizations. There is a certain amount of alertness that is necessary. You can exercise it at multiple points, including when deciding which company to join. It would be better if we could let down or guards and relax the alertness but ultimately it's needed.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
eklavya 4y ago
We found out one “head of AI” or something was just taking GitHub repos and passing as his own. All we could do was manage around him.
- claytonjy 4y ago
  This sounds interesting, can you tell us more? Were they doing this on their public github to get the role, or internally misrepresenting work as their own?
- borroka 4y ago
  Our Head of AI for an org of more than 700 people, had: - never done any AI work whatsoever in their life, nor software, nor, apparently, any kind of tech/technical work in their lives - blatantly lied on their Linkedin profile about past positions - shown the inability of connecting their laptop to a printer - told time and again the most outrageous lies about their competences (e.g., they said they had coded an automatic language translation software in Perl back in 2000), work done at the company and prior to their current role, and their life. When HR contacted me after a complaint initiated by a colleague, to describe them I used the words: "they are the most incompetent person I have ever worked with". The funny part is that despite their "sponsor" having left the company (the whole situation was so bizarre that to me the most likely explanation for their hiring was some sort of blackmailing or bribery), they are still employed (because for legacy companies it is more conveniente to make people inoffensive than fire them) and some of my colleagues are still drinking their lies like glasses of fresh water despite a few years of their semi-psychopathic behavior. The world is an interesting place.
ryandrake 4y ago
Yes, and once you manage to somehow become VP of This or Director of That, your career is pretty much self-sustaining. Your next job will be always be VP of That or Director of This, and your next job, and so on. You just have to get that title once, and then you're golden--there will always be another company looking for a VP, and you're now "qualified" by virtue of once having that title. Have you ever heard of a VP that ends up moving back into Individual Code Monkey Number 42010 because he can't find another VP position? Sure, some of these guys "Semi-Retire" and go back to a coding job for fun, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about: "Boy, the market for VPs is tough. I might have to take a lifestyle downgrade and go back to being a regular old middle-manager!" I don't know, maybe it does happen, but I haven't seen it. The only time I've seen it is during acquisitions, where a gigantic company gobbles up a 10 person startup, where everyone at the startup gave themselves VP and Director titles, but again, not talking about that nonsense.
- PainfullyNormal 4y ago
  What you're talking about is social proof and while it's definitely a thing, it's not as precise as "you get this title once and you're a made man". For example, I know a few people that were forced to do what you describe because their single VP position was a failure. If you're a VP at Apple and were responsible for shipping iGreatThing, then you're right, you have social proof and a job in the industry for life. If you're a VP at a no-name manufacturing shop in the midwest that made a decent profit, but you were eventually put out of business by a larger competitor, then you don't have social proof or a job in the industry for life. Social proof also applies to pretty much every area of human endeavor. I once worked with a game designer who regularly makes the top 100 game designers of all time list. He got his status in the industry for work he did in the 80s. None of his modern work has been successful, but he'll have a job in the industry for life.
- mattnewton 4y ago
  It also happens when moving from startups to FAANG. When I was at Google I worked with a lot of senior/staff engineers who were previously titled director or so, and that's probably because of title inflation at startups but also Google downleveling people because thats the offer they gave the candidate. I do think engineering types often switch out of "director" or "vp" title roles more often than you might think.
ed_elliott_asc 4y ago
Name names you coward :)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
aahortwwy 4y ago
This is a huge issue in security. At all levels, not just senior management.
legendofbrando 4y ago
This is a pretty common view and flawed in my experience because people assume that excellence in “big role X” actually maps to “best at X.” In practice, the job of being “in charge” is often about navigating organizations, exacting meaningful change within the constraints of that environment and building trust with the other people at that level to enable your teams to have impact. That sounds a lot like “fake” work, but that’s only because we (the society we) tend to assume that all that is required to achieve things is to put a bunch of great people together and the rest takes care of itself. In practice, this is almost never true. People have individual motivations, feelings, and goals that contradict each other - the role of people in leadership is to recognize this and help find the midpoint. Finally, it’s worth noting that most individuals value significant autonomy over their work. So while people often hold leadership accountable to excellence in X, the thing they actually want from people is for them to get out of the way so they individually can do X the way they want. Such is the paradox of leadership. It’s probably a feature that there are some people who are willing to do these jobs and that most people aren’t vs assuming it’s a bug and that “many” are serial fakers.
alecco 4y ago
I call them the Primadonna Locust. Announce Big Project inside (and outside!) the organization. Make it look shiny from day 1 but avoid all complexity rabbit holes. Keep all cans of worms closed. Make lots of presentations. Convince everyone into the cult of Big Project. Once it's delayed for too long, move to another, likely bigger, company eager to implement a copy of Big Project. Take anybody good at selling, prototyping, or technical. Leave the rest (losers) to deal with making Big Project work. Loser management will NEVER admit they got swindled, at least not in the open. Heck, they might even like how Primadonna Locust will hit their competitor as hard.

Foobar8568 4y ago

Because at these levels, it's not about what you can do, but how you manage politics. From a technical point of view, most of these people are useless and a waste.

rexreed 4y ago
At those levels, unfortunately, they have both budget and authority, as well as the ability to impact culture and the definition and prioritization of teams and their work. Sort of like military generals who get their ranks not by proven experience but by working the chain of command, to the great detriment of those who actually have to face the fire.
bonoboTP 4y ago
Politics arises whenever people come together. It's comfortable to think that we can simply encapsulate "politics" as such, as something for the stupid people and we the enlightened rational technical people don't concern ourselves with "politics" but unfortunately one cannot simply wish it out of existence. Politics is just a label attached to human behavior. Put 3 people together and you will have "drama" (politics on the small scale). Better learn how to understand people's motivations and incentives instead of bitterly dismissing confusing human behavior as "politics".
- omginternets 4y ago
  Agreed. Moreover, the parent poster is overlooking that in a well functioning engineering organization, political influence is at least partly a function of competence.
  - swagasaurus-rex 4y ago
    Competence at politics is orthogonal to usefulness to the company. Often times incentives can push politics in self-destructive ways to the organization.
  - bonoboTP 4y ago
    Right, HN tends to be very bitter and depressive about dysfunction. Of course it's selection bias too, we talk more about our complaints than our joys. But it's a very gloomy view to think that anyone who rises in an organization does so through psychopathic manipulation and passing on the hot potato then through pure bullshitting, woos the higher ups and catapults up the ladder via promotion. And that any value is always created by some last-in-line loser who got the hot potato passed on, and his work is never noticed or credited. If this were true, you wouldn't see anything get done. Yet, widgets roll off conveyor belts and products are shipped. The system is never perfect, and there is always some misjudgment of who contributes usefully and who is a pure talker. To solve large-scale problems, we have to join forces with other humans. But we can't see into each other's head, so there will be mistakes and opportunities to exploit mistakes. At the end of the day, boundaries must be drawn. There will be conflict of interests. There is conflict between the aggregate interest of the group and interests of the participants. There are ways to coordinate these, but the effect can't be fully eliminated. Inside any harmony on a large scale, you find conflict on a smaller scale. Even a mother and her fetus are in some senses competing for resources and the mother must biologically protect herself from exploitative behavior of the fetus (this objectively happens in biology). These things are more like laws of "nature" than something to be "angry" about. It's like game theory. The behavior of individual people may be up for judgment but the collective is predictable. You can't ascribe it to individual moral failure when you consistently observe it across organizations. There is a certain amount of alertness that is necessary. You can exercise it at multiple points, including when deciding which company to join. It would be better if we could let down or guards and relax the alertness but ultimately it's needed.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

eklavya 4y ago

We found out one “head of AI” or something was just taking GitHub repos and passing as his own. All we could do was manage around him.

claytonjy 4y ago
This sounds interesting, can you tell us more? Were they doing this on their public github to get the role, or internally misrepresenting work as their own?
borroka 4y ago
Our Head of AI for an org of more than 700 people, had: - never done any AI work whatsoever in their life, nor software, nor, apparently, any kind of tech/technical work in their lives - blatantly lied on their Linkedin profile about past positions - shown the inability of connecting their laptop to a printer - told time and again the most outrageous lies about their competences (e.g., they said they had coded an automatic language translation software in Perl back in 2000), work done at the company and prior to their current role, and their life. When HR contacted me after a complaint initiated by a colleague, to describe them I used the words: "they are the most incompetent person I have ever worked with". The funny part is that despite their "sponsor" having left the company (the whole situation was so bizarre that to me the most likely explanation for their hiring was some sort of blackmailing or bribery), they are still employed (because for legacy companies it is more conveniente to make people inoffensive than fire them) and some of my colleagues are still drinking their lies like glasses of fresh water despite a few years of their semi-psychopathic behavior. The world is an interesting place.

ryandrake 4y ago

Yes, and once you manage to somehow become VP of This or Director of That, your career is pretty much self-sustaining. Your next job will be always be VP of That or Director of This, and your next job, and so on. You just have to get that title once, and then you're golden--there will always be another company looking for a VP, and you're now "qualified" by virtue of once having that title. Have you ever heard of a VP that ends up moving back into Individual Code Monkey Number 42010 because he can't find another VP position? Sure, some of these guys "Semi-Retire" and go back to a coding job for fun, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about: "Boy, the market for VPs is tough. I might have to take a lifestyle downgrade and go back to being a regular old middle-manager!" I don't know, maybe it does happen, but I haven't seen it. The only time I've seen it is during acquisitions, where a gigantic company gobbles up a 10 person startup, where everyone at the startup gave themselves VP and Director titles, but again, not talking about that nonsense.

PainfullyNormal 4y ago
What you're talking about is social proof and while it's definitely a thing, it's not as precise as "you get this title once and you're a made man". For example, I know a few people that were forced to do what you describe because their single VP position was a failure. If you're a VP at Apple and were responsible for shipping iGreatThing, then you're right, you have social proof and a job in the industry for life. If you're a VP at a no-name manufacturing shop in the midwest that made a decent profit, but you were eventually put out of business by a larger competitor, then you don't have social proof or a job in the industry for life. Social proof also applies to pretty much every area of human endeavor. I once worked with a game designer who regularly makes the top 100 game designers of all time list. He got his status in the industry for work he did in the 80s. None of his modern work has been successful, but he'll have a job in the industry for life.
mattnewton 4y ago
It also happens when moving from startups to FAANG. When I was at Google I worked with a lot of senior/staff engineers who were previously titled director or so, and that's probably because of title inflation at startups but also Google downleveling people because thats the offer they gave the candidate. I do think engineering types often switch out of "director" or "vp" title roles more often than you might think.

ed_elliott_asc 4y ago

Name names you coward :)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

aahortwwy 4y ago

This is a huge issue in security. At all levels, not just senior management.

legendofbrando 4y ago

This is a pretty common view and flawed in my experience because people assume that excellence in “big role X” actually maps to “best at X.” In practice, the job of being “in charge” is often about navigating organizations, exacting meaningful change within the constraints of that environment and building trust with the other people at that level to enable your teams to have impact. That sounds a lot like “fake” work, but that’s only because we (the society we) tend to assume that all that is required to achieve things is to put a bunch of great people together and the rest takes care of itself. In practice, this is almost never true. People have individual motivations, feelings, and goals that contradict each other - the role of people in leadership is to recognize this and help find the midpoint. Finally, it’s worth noting that most individuals value significant autonomy over their work. So while people often hold leadership accountable to excellence in X, the thing they actually want from people is for them to get out of the way so they individually can do X the way they want. Such is the paradox of leadership. It’s probably a feature that there are some people who are willing to do these jobs and that most people aren’t vs assuming it’s a bug and that “many” are serial fakers.

alecco 4y ago

I call them the Primadonna Locust. Announce Big Project inside (and outside!) the organization. Make it look shiny from day 1 but avoid all complexity rabbit holes. Keep all cans of worms closed. Make lots of presentations. Convince everyone into the cult of Big Project. Once it's delayed for too long, move to another, likely bigger, company eager to implement a copy of Big Project. Take anybody good at selling, prototyping, or technical. Leave the rest (losers) to deal with making Big Project work. Loser management will NEVER admit they got swindled, at least not in the open. Heck, they might even like how Primadonna Locust will hit their competitor as hard.