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I'm not sure how the Elon experiment will go but surely the star engineers would be easier to retain if they were just absorbing the salary of the unproductive

I'm not sure how the Elon experiment will go but surely the star engineers would be easier to retain if they were just absorbing the salary of the unproductive ones - and maybe some of that extra money went to more fun games and non-tech assistants who also like ping pong. I don't have that much faith that it is that easy to always identify the slack or that it will be enough to make Twitter profitable, but it also seems a bit uncontroversial to say a lot of these companies having hiring patterns of a growth company in a low-interest rate environment even though their core product is relatively stable.

reducesuffering 4y ago
I think that tech co’s have a hard time identifying competence because it almost always comes top down from the manager, who usually spends most of their time in unrelated-to-tech meetings. What I don’t understand, is why isn’t competence strongly ascertained from other engineers on the team. Among my teammates in an extended 15 person team, it is very obvious who the high and low performers are.
- fasthands9 4y ago
  I would imagine some of Elon's bravado here is for people who are low-performers (who probably know they are) to either step up their game or to start looking for work elsewhere on their own. Not sure if it will be worth the costs - but I think its clear it has some benefit.
- ummonk 4y ago
  Imagine the kinds of social maneuvering that would start to happen if competence were strongly ascertained from other engineers on the team. Goodheart's Law applies to all metrics, but this one is particularly likely to undermine a workplace.
  - reducesuffering 4y ago
    The alternative is that right now, all that social maneuvering is focused on the IC to the manager. It's much more difficult for the IC to social maneuver all the different IC's into a facade of competence, than to be competent or focus all the bs on a single manager.

reducesuffering 4y ago

I think that tech co’s have a hard time identifying competence because it almost always comes top down from the manager, who usually spends most of their time in unrelated-to-tech meetings. What I don’t understand, is why isn’t competence strongly ascertained from other engineers on the team. Among my teammates in an extended 15 person team, it is very obvious who the high and low performers are.

fasthands9 4y ago
I would imagine some of Elon's bravado here is for people who are low-performers (who probably know they are) to either step up their game or to start looking for work elsewhere on their own. Not sure if it will be worth the costs - but I think its clear it has some benefit.
ummonk 4y ago
Imagine the kinds of social maneuvering that would start to happen if competence were strongly ascertained from other engineers on the team. Goodheart's Law applies to all metrics, but this one is particularly likely to undermine a workplace.
- reducesuffering 4y ago
  The alternative is that right now, all that social maneuvering is focused on the IC to the manager. It's much more difficult for the IC to social maneuver all the different IC's into a facade of competence, than to be competent or focus all the bs on a single manager.