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I think this is an insightful assessment. Not everyone in a company can be top line. But I also think there's a lot more opportunity in using statistics/ml/da

I think this is an insightful assessment. Not everyone in a company can be top line. But I also think there's a lot more opportunity in using statistics/ml/data science in the top line than most companies practice.

greesil 4y ago
But that would lead to accountability...
- kneebonian 4y ago
  This is the real problem. Visibility is to be abhorred at the top levels because viability brings accountability. How many Dilbert comics are there out there with the punchline being "I don't care what the real numbers are these are what I want the numbers to be" from the PHB There is a large swathe of middle and upper management that gets by due to continually making sure their actual impact is never measured, and they are only a "force multiplier." not that you should do away with middle management, but there are many in middle management who could be done away with, with very marginal loss.
  - angry_octet 4y ago
    OMG the 'Technology Foresight' group, the 'Process Improved Team'. Cross functional synergy! We all know what the problems are and where investment is needed, but management pretends that they don't know so they can have An Initiative to discover it, but not really address it (because e.g. the problem is one they caused with previous poor management).
apohn 4y ago
>But I also think there's a lot more opportunity in using statistics/ml/data science in the top line than most companies practice. I consider myself a fairly honest Data Scientist, in the sense that I like it when I can map what I'm doing to the value it delivers. I know some other great people I've worked with who are like this as well. This is anecdotal, but all of us have hated working with many top line people because there's some really fuzzy mapping from goal to value (since value is realized in the long term), and some of the people are champion bullshitters. I don't need to explain sales people. But marketing, corporate strategy, and even upper product management - they drove us crazy because their standard of being data driven was absolutely not consistent with how we thought about things at all. All of it was because the mapping from project to revenue was over years, not quarters. And it was all projections. Compare this to bottom line people, where the mapping from project to cost savings is on a shorter time frame. The types of personalities this attracts is different. Maybe the growth hacking stuff at software companies is different and you can focus on revenue growth and still connect what you are doing to that. I've never worked in that role so I don't know.

greesil 4y ago

But that would lead to accountability...

kneebonian 4y ago
This is the real problem. Visibility is to be abhorred at the top levels because viability brings accountability. How many Dilbert comics are there out there with the punchline being "I don't care what the real numbers are these are what I want the numbers to be" from the PHB There is a large swathe of middle and upper management that gets by due to continually making sure their actual impact is never measured, and they are only a "force multiplier." not that you should do away with middle management, but there are many in middle management who could be done away with, with very marginal loss.
- angry_octet 4y ago
  OMG the 'Technology Foresight' group, the 'Process Improved Team'. Cross functional synergy! We all know what the problems are and where investment is needed, but management pretends that they don't know so they can have An Initiative to discover it, but not really address it (because e.g. the problem is one they caused with previous poor management).

apohn 4y ago

>But I also think there's a lot more opportunity in using statistics/ml/data science in the top line than most companies practice. I consider myself a fairly honest Data Scientist, in the sense that I like it when I can map what I'm doing to the value it delivers. I know some other great people I've worked with who are like this as well. This is anecdotal, but all of us have hated working with many top line people because there's some really fuzzy mapping from goal to value (since value is realized in the long term), and some of the people are champion bullshitters. I don't need to explain sales people. But marketing, corporate strategy, and even upper product management - they drove us crazy because their standard of being data driven was absolutely not consistent with how we thought about things at all. All of it was because the mapping from project to revenue was over years, not quarters. And it was all projections. Compare this to bottom line people, where the mapping from project to cost savings is on a shorter time frame. The types of personalities this attracts is different. Maybe the growth hacking stuff at software companies is different and you can focus on revenue growth and still connect what you are doing to that. I've never worked in that role so I don't know.