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Breaking: man with no experience building products concludes that he knows better than those who do it every day. This is of course a common bias people have,

Breaking: man with no experience building products concludes that he knows better than those who do it every day. This is of course a common bias people have, not understanding what others do, but it's also exacerbated by a) being a privileged white man, b) his paycheck depending on it, and c) that analysing a company's numbers gives some investors a false sense of understanding the company – because they "understand" their investment they think that translates to understanding internals.

jaywalk 4y ago
Thank you for bringing gender and race into the conversation. That's exactly what was missing here.
twelve40 4y ago
He's not claiming anything about product, there is something to be said for fiscal discipline and paying for 200,000 people with an unclear purpose (direct Pichai quote: "hired for a different economic reality", aka "unable to plan ahead for more than a few months"). But I still don't understand where were these smart frugal influential shareholders a year ago, when the overhiring could have been corrected without damaging the company's reputation and people's careers.
boeingUH60 4y ago
> This is of course a common bias people have, not understanding what others do, but it's also exacerbated by a) being a privileged white man What does his skin color have to do with this? You could have just simply said "privileged multi-billionaire".
- danpalmer 4y ago
  I was being a little facetious, but there’s some truth in it. White men have a lot of privilege, that’s fairly well accepted, and something I know from first hand experience. That privilege is what leads to things like mansplaining and overconfidence in one’s own opinions, or even deeming one’s own opinions to be facts. It leads there because the privileged are less likely to receive pushback on their ideas, more likely to receive praise, or even funding for their ideas, and society treats them as overall more correct. Huge generalisations of course, but so is most of this thread.

jaywalk 4y ago

Thank you for bringing gender and race into the conversation. That's exactly what was missing here.

twelve40 4y ago

He's not claiming anything about product, there is something to be said for fiscal discipline and paying for 200,000 people with an unclear purpose (direct Pichai quote: "hired for a different economic reality", aka "unable to plan ahead for more than a few months"). But I still don't understand where were these smart frugal influential shareholders a year ago, when the overhiring could have been corrected without damaging the company's reputation and people's careers.

boeingUH60 4y ago

> This is of course a common bias people have, not understanding what others do, but it's also exacerbated by a) being a privileged white man What does his skin color have to do with this? You could have just simply said "privileged multi-billionaire".

danpalmer 4y ago
I was being a little facetious, but there’s some truth in it. White men have a lot of privilege, that’s fairly well accepted, and something I know from first hand experience. That privilege is what leads to things like mansplaining and overconfidence in one’s own opinions, or even deeming one’s own opinions to be facts. It leads there because the privileged are less likely to receive pushback on their ideas, more likely to receive praise, or even funding for their ideas, and society treats them as overall more correct. Huge generalisations of course, but so is most of this thread.