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The best part about people who take every word literally and demand punishment is that no punishment will ever satisfy all of them. It wouldn’t matter if Sunda

The best part about people who take every word literally and demand punishment is that no punishment will ever satisfy all of them. It wouldn’t matter if Sundar took a pay cut (like Tim Cook) because the same people would say he’s still worth hundreds of millions. It wouldn’t matter if he fired himself because there would be some other, equally fallible human being in the same role that he vacated. That person would be capable of making the same mistake Sundar did. Have these people never worked in a real organisation where people make mistakes? When an engineer causes an incident, we fixed it and then did a review to understand how we can improve the process to prevent such an incident in future. We didn’t point fingers, we didn’t demand punishment. Here’s the thing - Sundar is still probably the best person to helm Google, despite this mistake. In fact, a person who has had to lay off thousands will definitely think twice before going on a hiring spree in future. Exactly the sort of person you want in charge.

discreteevent 4y ago
> In fact, a person who has had to lay off thousands will definitely think twice before going on a hiring spree in future. Exactly the sort of person you want in charge. How about someone who doesn't have to lay off thousands to before they figure this out? Someone with imagination and foresight? Maybe they would be more of an exact match.
- nindalf 4y ago
  Yes, I’d love to find the person who has never made a mistake to be the CEO. Undoubtedly you must be speaking from personal experience of being infallible?
js8 4y ago
Personally, I don't see taking a paycut or leaving a position of power to be "taking a responsibility". The baseline for ordinary people is not to be in the position of power or not to have a high salary. If you just reduce to the baseline, it's not really a punishment. Incompetent people shouldn't get the privileged position in the first place, so thinking of losing it as a punishment is absurd.
- Sebb767 4y ago
  > The baseline for ordinary people is not to be in the position of power or not to have a high salary. This is quite funny, since the 'victims' we're talking about are some of the highest paid people in an already highly paying profession. > Incompetent people shouldn't get the privileged position in the first place, so thinking of losing it as a punishment is absurd. Also, we should not have error handling because we only hire competent developers and therefore our app doesn't crash, ever. This is clearly absurd. Plus, the economic situation did change. Calling Satya incompetent for making mistakes while steering a trillion dollar company feels a bit like the management equivalent of "I could build StackOverflow in a weekend".
  - js8 4y ago
    I am not sure you understood the argument I am making. At least I am confused what you're trying to argue. All I am saying is this: If I am giving you a handsome reward for a job, and it turns out you are doing it badly, then giving you just half the reward is not a punishment. Even giving you no reward is not a punishment (because you got a chance to do a well-rewarded job). Punishment, to mean something, would be losing more than you would get for doing the acceptable job.
- ketzu 4y ago
  Your argument seems to be that punishment only exists on an absolute scale (or relative to the overall population, not relative to the individual). Am I understanding it correctly? If so, I heavily disagree and hold the opposite opinion: Punishment (and reward for that matter) are heavily individual. E.g., Only playing with a playstation for 30 mins a day might be a punishment for one kid, as they were playing 2~8h a day before, and a reward for another, as they haven't had access to that before. It is relativ to their life situation and independent of general playstation playtime. But there are cases where punishment is somewhat absolute, mostly for severe infractions like violent crime. Even then, the degree to what a sentence might feel as a punishment might heavily diverge based on the person receiving it. E.g., a homeless person without a job might feel very different about going to prison for 5 years than a highly paid investment manager.
KaiserPro 4y ago
> When an engineer causes an incident, we fixed it and then did a review to understand how we can improve the process to prevent such an incident in future Yes, sure most of the time its the process's fault. But not always. The big issue is that unlike an incident review where agreed, measurable fixes will be put in place, in business there is no such thing. Sure, Sundar admits that he made the wrong call. But, why? what information lead to that call, what changes are going to be made to how decisions are made in the future? how can the rest of the company be sure that this is a one time thing, and not a systemic information bias.
- nindalf 4y ago
  I assume there’s been a post-mortem for this incident, considering the cost to the company in terms of morale, pain for former employees, damage to hiring brand etc. They’ve probably learned lessons from this so they don’t repeat them in future. It’s hard to make the results of the post-mortem public because most of this would be decisions taken by specific people, instead of systems misfiring. They would not want to publicly throw the people under the bus.
  - KaiserPro 4y ago
    > I assume there’s been a post-mortem for this incident That requires trust. The sysadmin team where I work have a weekly incident review, its vaguely public and although I don't often go, trust is built because results are not private or hidden. > It’s hard to make the results of the post-mortem public because most of this would be decisions taken by specific people, Public yes, but wider inside the company, less so (there are some caveats.) but as for throwing people under a bus, that's never the aim for an incident review. Sure if someone clearly acted with malice, then perhaps action might be taken. The point of incident reviews is to work out what happened, why, and if its likely to happen again. The general rule is that if you allow people to speak honestly in a review, and not punish them after, you get a better result.
Nullabillity 4y ago
Maybe we shouldn't have megacorporation CEOs in the first place. Maybe we shouldn't have billionaires. (And no, before the pedants come in, the absolute amount isn't what matters, the absurd level of inequality is.)

discreteevent 4y ago

> In fact, a person who has had to lay off thousands will definitely think twice before going on a hiring spree in future. Exactly the sort of person you want in charge. How about someone who doesn't have to lay off thousands to before they figure this out? Someone with imagination and foresight? Maybe they would be more of an exact match.

nindalf 4y ago
Yes, I’d love to find the person who has never made a mistake to be the CEO. Undoubtedly you must be speaking from personal experience of being infallible?

js8 4y ago

Personally, I don't see taking a paycut or leaving a position of power to be "taking a responsibility". The baseline for ordinary people is not to be in the position of power or not to have a high salary. If you just reduce to the baseline, it's not really a punishment. Incompetent people shouldn't get the privileged position in the first place, so thinking of losing it as a punishment is absurd.

Sebb767 4y ago
> The baseline for ordinary people is not to be in the position of power or not to have a high salary. This is quite funny, since the 'victims' we're talking about are some of the highest paid people in an already highly paying profession. > Incompetent people shouldn't get the privileged position in the first place, so thinking of losing it as a punishment is absurd. Also, we should not have error handling because we only hire competent developers and therefore our app doesn't crash, ever. This is clearly absurd. Plus, the economic situation did change. Calling Satya incompetent for making mistakes while steering a trillion dollar company feels a bit like the management equivalent of "I could build StackOverflow in a weekend".
- js8 4y ago
  I am not sure you understood the argument I am making. At least I am confused what you're trying to argue. All I am saying is this: If I am giving you a handsome reward for a job, and it turns out you are doing it badly, then giving you just half the reward is not a punishment. Even giving you no reward is not a punishment (because you got a chance to do a well-rewarded job). Punishment, to mean something, would be losing more than you would get for doing the acceptable job.
ketzu 4y ago
Your argument seems to be that punishment only exists on an absolute scale (or relative to the overall population, not relative to the individual). Am I understanding it correctly? If so, I heavily disagree and hold the opposite opinion: Punishment (and reward for that matter) are heavily individual. E.g., Only playing with a playstation for 30 mins a day might be a punishment for one kid, as they were playing 2~8h a day before, and a reward for another, as they haven't had access to that before. It is relativ to their life situation and independent of general playstation playtime. But there are cases where punishment is somewhat absolute, mostly for severe infractions like violent crime. Even then, the degree to what a sentence might feel as a punishment might heavily diverge based on the person receiving it. E.g., a homeless person without a job might feel very different about going to prison for 5 years than a highly paid investment manager.

KaiserPro 4y ago

> When an engineer causes an incident, we fixed it and then did a review to understand how we can improve the process to prevent such an incident in future Yes, sure most of the time its the process's fault. But not always. The big issue is that unlike an incident review where agreed, measurable fixes will be put in place, in business there is no such thing. Sure, Sundar admits that he made the wrong call. But, why? what information lead to that call, what changes are going to be made to how decisions are made in the future? how can the rest of the company be sure that this is a one time thing, and not a systemic information bias.

nindalf 4y ago
I assume there’s been a post-mortem for this incident, considering the cost to the company in terms of morale, pain for former employees, damage to hiring brand etc. They’ve probably learned lessons from this so they don’t repeat them in future. It’s hard to make the results of the post-mortem public because most of this would be decisions taken by specific people, instead of systems misfiring. They would not want to publicly throw the people under the bus.
- KaiserPro 4y ago
  > I assume there’s been a post-mortem for this incident That requires trust. The sysadmin team where I work have a weekly incident review, its vaguely public and although I don't often go, trust is built because results are not private or hidden. > It’s hard to make the results of the post-mortem public because most of this would be decisions taken by specific people, Public yes, but wider inside the company, less so (there are some caveats.) but as for throwing people under a bus, that's never the aim for an incident review. Sure if someone clearly acted with malice, then perhaps action might be taken. The point of incident reviews is to work out what happened, why, and if its likely to happen again. The general rule is that if you allow people to speak honestly in a review, and not punish them after, you get a better result.

Nullabillity 4y ago

Maybe we shouldn't have megacorporation CEOs in the first place. Maybe we shouldn't have billionaires. (And no, before the pedants come in, the absolute amount isn't what matters, the absurd level of inequality is.)