7 ms·

A "wartime" business person is a hilarious idea. Gotta feel manly somehow, I guess!

by sweetheart 4y ago

larsonnn 4y ago
Yes. A few billion dollars wartime CEO.
croisillon 4y ago
War is a business
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
karaterobot 4y ago
I cringe when I see businesses using the vernacular of war to describe really mundane, essentially riskless goals. One company I was at had a "war room" dedicated to... increasing MRR to the arbitrary goals they'd set that quarter. They put a sign on the door. Another CEO told us in an all hands that the company was on a "war footing" until we found product market fit, and he'd use phrases like "total war" all the time. Jesus Christ, we're nerds trying to make money for investors.
- afarrell 4y ago
  It also can be actively harmful to accomplishing the mission. It removes the sense of proportion needed to wisely weigh tradeoffs. It suggests that people play out roles in the Drama Triangle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovrVv_RlCMw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovrVv_RlCMw) instead of focusing on building things, solving problems, and helping each other learn.
- pm90 4y ago
  Yes its very cringe and only appeals to a certain section of people. At a previous company I worked at, they took this even further, organizing themselves into "squads" (teams) which were part of "platoons" (orgs). Someone that interviewed pointed out that this was pretty aggressive/warlike terminology and wondered why they used it and they didn't really have a good answer.
  - rmckayfleming 4y ago
    While using military terminology in non-military organizations is cringy, there's a good reason that military allusions come up frequently in business writing. Armies were the first large scale organizations in history and suffer from the same failure conditions except with much higher stakes. Large businesses (and similarly large governmental functions apart from the military) are much more recent inventions. The most important similarities though are a focus on logistics, team structures and specializations, as well as decision making frameworks. As a result of that, a lot of business writing is in some sense descended from military writing. And modern military writing continues to be a valuable source of wisdom in a business context because of those similarities (one of the best management books I've ever read is "Turn the ship around!" by L. David Marquet about reforming the dynamics of a nuclear submarine crew). (Of course that doesn't stop people from cargo-culting the military without thought given to the specific context.)
  - scottyah 4y ago
    > certain section of people. Veterans who are used to the terms?
    - vsareto 4y ago
      More likely non-veterans trying to sound serious
    - TremendousJudge 4y ago
      I suspect people who actually went through the military would instantly spot this as ridiculous larping
    - _jal 4y ago
      I'd guess grown-up mall ninjas who never got closer to serving than TV shows.
  - horsawlarway 4y ago
    "Squads" I don't really have a problem with - it's just "team", and is often used in sports outside the US in the same way "team" is here. Technically - it's the full roster from which the team on the field is selected - but meh, close enough. "Platoon" feels pretty out of place. I'd have trouble not laughing every time I said it.
fairity 4y ago
Poking fun at what other people choose to hold important is childish, imo. Because, ultimately what people choose to value is subjective, and there’s no right or wrong. Put another way, what you perceive as valuable is equally hilarious from many others’ valid perspectives. As long as they’re not hurting anyone, people are free to choose their own adventure.
- montagg 4y ago
  They are not free from criticism of it though. The idea of a “wartime” person is anchored in machismo. It romanticizes, and excuses, really crappy behavior that is long-term destructive. Calling something a “war” is a convenient justification for all sorts of terrible, foolish actions. The “war on drugs” or the “war on cancer” are good examples. Cancer doctors would try to one up each other in how extreme they could be in their treatment of breast cancer, and it turns out a lot of those tactics, such as literally tearing out pectoral muscles down to the bone, don’t actually help patient survival. But the “wartime” framing made that kind of action without thinking okay. So I disagree that framing things as if they are war doesn’t hurt anyone. It has. And the framing deserves critical attention, so we can find a better framing for a challenging time that requires sacrifice and effort that doesn’t turn into “the ends justify the means.” EDIt: More on [reframing the war on cancer](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8749321/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8749321/) and why it can be harmful.
  - fairity 4y ago
    Agreed, I think it’s useful to discuss whether war framing is an effective tool to create desired outcomes, but that’s beside my point. I’m addressing OP’s implication that it’s ‘hilarious’ to think running a business is worthy of a war-time framing.
jmchuster 4y ago
This isn't just a Godfather reference?
- notahacker 4y ago
  Yeah, this. It's even quoted in the article. Picking the terminology from mafia movies is more cringeworthy than picking it from analogies to government, of course... the idea that Page needed to step up as "wartime consigliere/CEO" in 2011 because Google was staring down existential threat if it didn't do stuff drastically differently to stave of the threat from social media is also quite funny in hindsight.
  - TremendousJudge 4y ago
    It's also funny because Google didn't change one bit since then. Stevey's Google platform rant is every bit as relevant today as it was in 2011 when it was published.

A "wartime" business person is a hilarious idea. Gotta feel manly somehow, I guess!

larsonnn 4y ago

Yes. A few billion dollars wartime CEO.

croisillon 4y ago

War is a business

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

karaterobot 4y ago

I cringe when I see businesses using the vernacular of war to describe really mundane, essentially riskless goals. One company I was at had a "war room" dedicated to... increasing MRR to the arbitrary goals they'd set that quarter. They put a sign on the door. Another CEO told us in an all hands that the company was on a "war footing" until we found product market fit, and he'd use phrases like "total war" all the time. Jesus Christ, we're nerds trying to make money for investors.

afarrell 4y ago
It also can be actively harmful to accomplishing the mission. It removes the sense of proportion needed to wisely weigh tradeoffs. It suggests that people play out roles in the Drama Triangle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovrVv_RlCMw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovrVv_RlCMw) instead of focusing on building things, solving problems, and helping each other learn.
pm90 4y ago
Yes its very cringe and only appeals to a certain section of people. At a previous company I worked at, they took this even further, organizing themselves into "squads" (teams) which were part of "platoons" (orgs). Someone that interviewed pointed out that this was pretty aggressive/warlike terminology and wondered why they used it and they didn't really have a good answer.
- rmckayfleming 4y ago
  While using military terminology in non-military organizations is cringy, there's a good reason that military allusions come up frequently in business writing. Armies were the first large scale organizations in history and suffer from the same failure conditions except with much higher stakes. Large businesses (and similarly large governmental functions apart from the military) are much more recent inventions. The most important similarities though are a focus on logistics, team structures and specializations, as well as decision making frameworks. As a result of that, a lot of business writing is in some sense descended from military writing. And modern military writing continues to be a valuable source of wisdom in a business context because of those similarities (one of the best management books I've ever read is "Turn the ship around!" by L. David Marquet about reforming the dynamics of a nuclear submarine crew). (Of course that doesn't stop people from cargo-culting the military without thought given to the specific context.)
- scottyah 4y ago
  > certain section of people. Veterans who are used to the terms?
  - vsareto 4y ago
    More likely non-veterans trying to sound serious
  - TremendousJudge 4y ago
    I suspect people who actually went through the military would instantly spot this as ridiculous larping
  - _jal 4y ago
    I'd guess grown-up mall ninjas who never got closer to serving than TV shows.
- horsawlarway 4y ago
  "Squads" I don't really have a problem with - it's just "team", and is often used in sports outside the US in the same way "team" is here. Technically - it's the full roster from which the team on the field is selected - but meh, close enough. "Platoon" feels pretty out of place. I'd have trouble not laughing every time I said it.

fairity 4y ago

Poking fun at what other people choose to hold important is childish, imo. Because, ultimately what people choose to value is subjective, and there’s no right or wrong. Put another way, what you perceive as valuable is equally hilarious from many others’ valid perspectives. As long as they’re not hurting anyone, people are free to choose their own adventure.

montagg 4y ago
They are not free from criticism of it though. The idea of a “wartime” person is anchored in machismo. It romanticizes, and excuses, really crappy behavior that is long-term destructive. Calling something a “war” is a convenient justification for all sorts of terrible, foolish actions. The “war on drugs” or the “war on cancer” are good examples. Cancer doctors would try to one up each other in how extreme they could be in their treatment of breast cancer, and it turns out a lot of those tactics, such as literally tearing out pectoral muscles down to the bone, don’t actually help patient survival. But the “wartime” framing made that kind of action without thinking okay. So I disagree that framing things as if they are war doesn’t hurt anyone. It has. And the framing deserves critical attention, so we can find a better framing for a challenging time that requires sacrifice and effort that doesn’t turn into “the ends justify the means.” EDIt: More on [reframing the war on cancer](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8749321/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8749321/) and why it can be harmful.
- fairity 4y ago
  Agreed, I think it’s useful to discuss whether war framing is an effective tool to create desired outcomes, but that’s beside my point. I’m addressing OP’s implication that it’s ‘hilarious’ to think running a business is worthy of a war-time framing.

jmchuster 4y ago

This isn't just a Godfather reference?

notahacker 4y ago
Yeah, this. It's even quoted in the article. Picking the terminology from mafia movies is more cringeworthy than picking it from analogies to government, of course... the idea that Page needed to step up as "wartime consigliere/CEO" in 2011 because Google was staring down existential threat if it didn't do stuff drastically differently to stave of the threat from social media is also quite funny in hindsight.
- TremendousJudge 4y ago
  It's also funny because Google didn't change one bit since then. Stevey's Google platform rant is every bit as relevant today as it was in 2011 when it was published.