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They can't. It'd undermine the very existence of the ruling elite class that doesn't know how to do anything, besides 'managing' by following a magic formula ta

They can't. It'd undermine the very existence of the ruling elite class that doesn't know how to do anything, besides 'managing' by following a magic formula taught at Harvard, Stanford, etc. The problem is the existence of a business management layer as an idea - it's an attempt to get back to the good old days of feudalism, whose chief characteristics are nepotism, stagnation, corruption and nihilism, now that we've gotten rid of the mental pacifier of 'heaven' for the oppressed and hell for the ruling elites (religion).

jjtheblunt 4y ago
this is the most resonant comment I've seen in months, as it entirely fits my experiences in engineering inside Apple, and later Amazon and Facebook. the inner sanctum of very flat Apple was as far from feudalism as could be, for my several years, and it functioned like a very performant ecosystem of engineering. This diametrically contrasts precisely with Amazon engineering, where I saw all the horrors of feudalism and generalized nepotism (racism for example, sexism promoting incapable people to fit quotas, and flagrant corruption). Facebook was somewhere more like Apple but not in its DNA...just in the imitation is flattery sense.
- recyclelater 4y ago
  Yes but I would argue Amazon has better software than apple by a long shot. Ignoring how you felt as a worker out what you read Amazon employees feel like, Amazon has better results.
  - adamc 4y ago
    Why do you think that is?
    - recyclelater 4y ago
      As in can I justify my claim, or what are the reasons that Amazon produces better software? I would say the former is a qualitative statement and I am going to have a hard time backing it up with facts, and the latter I have no idea. I run into non stop issues when interacting with apple software as an app producer, from Xcode to iOS to App Store to App Store connect. Their apis are pretty horrible, both the reliability and the design. As an end user of apple products, I regularly run into odd software problems with my MacBook and iPhone. Every CarPlay experience I have had is buggy, both from the actual CarPlay connectivity as well as apples own CarPlay enabled apps. Apple Watch is a horrible nightmare to make anything more complicated than a simple remote display. I could go on and on. However on the Amazon side of things I have never experienced a significant bug, aside from the audible app freezing on occasion when interacting with CarPlay. I blame apple though based off how their own apps work. I say this as an extensive consumer of Amazon products both as a business owner, developer, and SRE, as well as an extensive user of Amazon consumer products. All this being said I don’t like amazon as a business, I can find flaws in their decisions, but they are business decision flaws not just straight buggy products.
      - midoridensha 4y ago
        >I run into non stop issues when interacting with apple software... >As an end user of apple products, I regularly run into odd software problems with my MacBook and iPhone. Every CarPlay experience I have had is buggy, both from the actual CarPlay connectivity as well as apples own CarPlay enabled apps. >Apple Watch is a horrible nightmare to make anything more complicated than a simple remote display. So why do you keep paying top dollar for Apple products? For work stuff, I can understand, but no one's forcing you to buy an Apple Watch. Of course, many competitors to Apple products aren't perfect either, but they don't charge Apple prices either. I have some cheap Chinese fitness band and it doesn't work perfectly, but it was also only $35 so I really don't care as long as it mostly does what I want it to do, which it does.
        recyclelater 4y ago
        I have to use an iPhone in order to test our highest grossing platform. I’m not here to debate why apple has the most popular platform, I’m just stating what feels to me like a fairly unequivocal observation - apple’s software is pretty bad compared to Amazon’s. For whatever reason the company that takes millions in App Store revenue from my company, certainly doesn’t use it to make their software better!
        midoridensha 4y ago
        >I have to use an iPhone in order to test our highest grossing platform. As I said before: "So why do you keep paying top dollar for Apple products? For work stuff, I can understand, but no one's forcing you to buy an Apple Watch." Your work making you use an iPhone for testing does not mean you're required to own and use an iPhone as your personal device, or buy into other parts of the Apple ecosystem. If you really dislike Apple's software so much, why are you still using it outside of work? You complain endlessly about Apple, but you happily continue to send them your money. Multiply this by countless other Apple consumers and you have your answer about why they take millions in App Store revenue from your company and don't bother to improve their software: why should they? If I ran a company and people shoveled their hard-earned money to me no matter how lousy my product was, why would I bother making my product better?
  - ahartmetz 4y ago
    It may be that Apple does more of the "inspiration" part of the work and Amazon does more of the "transpiration" part. There is software that is great on the outside but crap on the inside and vice versa. The last 80% of quality (after the first 80%) come from testing, discipline and other such such unsexy things.
roflyear 4y ago
The nepotism is unreal in every company. Where I work the CEO hired a family member who makes more than me as a senior engineer and works 2-3 hours a day. Amazing.

jjtheblunt 4y ago

this is the most resonant comment I've seen in months, as it entirely fits my experiences in engineering inside Apple, and later Amazon and Facebook. the inner sanctum of very flat Apple was as far from feudalism as could be, for my several years, and it functioned like a very performant ecosystem of engineering. This diametrically contrasts precisely with Amazon engineering, where I saw all the horrors of feudalism and generalized nepotism (racism for example, sexism promoting incapable people to fit quotas, and flagrant corruption). Facebook was somewhere more like Apple but not in its DNA...just in the imitation is flattery sense.

recyclelater 4y ago
Yes but I would argue Amazon has better software than apple by a long shot. Ignoring how you felt as a worker out what you read Amazon employees feel like, Amazon has better results.
- adamc 4y ago
  Why do you think that is?
  - recyclelater 4y ago
    As in can I justify my claim, or what are the reasons that Amazon produces better software? I would say the former is a qualitative statement and I am going to have a hard time backing it up with facts, and the latter I have no idea. I run into non stop issues when interacting with apple software as an app producer, from Xcode to iOS to App Store to App Store connect. Their apis are pretty horrible, both the reliability and the design. As an end user of apple products, I regularly run into odd software problems with my MacBook and iPhone. Every CarPlay experience I have had is buggy, both from the actual CarPlay connectivity as well as apples own CarPlay enabled apps. Apple Watch is a horrible nightmare to make anything more complicated than a simple remote display. I could go on and on. However on the Amazon side of things I have never experienced a significant bug, aside from the audible app freezing on occasion when interacting with CarPlay. I blame apple though based off how their own apps work. I say this as an extensive consumer of Amazon products both as a business owner, developer, and SRE, as well as an extensive user of Amazon consumer products. All this being said I don’t like amazon as a business, I can find flaws in their decisions, but they are business decision flaws not just straight buggy products.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      >I run into non stop issues when interacting with apple software... >As an end user of apple products, I regularly run into odd software problems with my MacBook and iPhone. Every CarPlay experience I have had is buggy, both from the actual CarPlay connectivity as well as apples own CarPlay enabled apps. >Apple Watch is a horrible nightmare to make anything more complicated than a simple remote display. So why do you keep paying top dollar for Apple products? For work stuff, I can understand, but no one's forcing you to buy an Apple Watch. Of course, many competitors to Apple products aren't perfect either, but they don't charge Apple prices either. I have some cheap Chinese fitness band and it doesn't work perfectly, but it was also only $35 so I really don't care as long as it mostly does what I want it to do, which it does.
      - recyclelater 4y ago
        I have to use an iPhone in order to test our highest grossing platform. I’m not here to debate why apple has the most popular platform, I’m just stating what feels to me like a fairly unequivocal observation - apple’s software is pretty bad compared to Amazon’s. For whatever reason the company that takes millions in App Store revenue from my company, certainly doesn’t use it to make their software better!
        midoridensha 4y ago
        >I have to use an iPhone in order to test our highest grossing platform. As I said before: "So why do you keep paying top dollar for Apple products? For work stuff, I can understand, but no one's forcing you to buy an Apple Watch." Your work making you use an iPhone for testing does not mean you're required to own and use an iPhone as your personal device, or buy into other parts of the Apple ecosystem. If you really dislike Apple's software so much, why are you still using it outside of work? You complain endlessly about Apple, but you happily continue to send them your money. Multiply this by countless other Apple consumers and you have your answer about why they take millions in App Store revenue from your company and don't bother to improve their software: why should they? If I ran a company and people shoveled their hard-earned money to me no matter how lousy my product was, why would I bother making my product better?
- ahartmetz 4y ago
  It may be that Apple does more of the "inspiration" part of the work and Amazon does more of the "transpiration" part. There is software that is great on the outside but crap on the inside and vice versa. The last 80% of quality (after the first 80%) come from testing, discipline and other such such unsexy things.

roflyear 4y ago

The nepotism is unreal in every company. Where I work the CEO hired a family member who makes more than me as a senior engineer and works 2-3 hours a day. Amazing.