4 ms·

This is a pretty insightful article. I would just add that nearly every large company follows this same arc. It used to be said about IBM, back in their dominan

This is a pretty insightful article. I would just add that nearly every large company follows this same arc. It used to be said about IBM, back in their dominant days, that their product bureaucracy was such that it would take them nine months to ship an empty box. Relative to yesterday's comments about "wartime CEOs and peacetime CEOs", he says: > a soft peacetime culture Also: > Within Google, there is a collective delusion that the company is exceptional. And as is the case in all such delusions, the deluded ones are just mortals standing on the shoulders of the truly exceptional people who went before them and created an environment of wild success. Eventually, the exceptional environment starts to fade, but the lingering delusion has abolished humility among the mere mortals who remain. I summarized this yesterday (quoting someone else) as "born on third base and thinks he hit a triple."

akomtu 4y ago
That's the good old saying: "Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times." ― G. Michael Hopf
- jimduk 4y ago
  Not sure it is a good saying. Brett Devereaux covers it in detail in his "fremen mirage" articles which I find a good read. https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/ https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    A strawman argument, which no one is actually saying: > Second: Consequently, people from these less settled societies are better fighters and more militarily capable than their settled or wealthier neighboring societies. > Third: That, consequently the poorer, harder people will inevitably overrun and subjugate the richer, more prosperous communities around them. I prefer real history to science fiction, myself. The 30s were indisputably hard times, but they produced the people who won WW II and went to the moon.
    - rebuilder 4y ago
      The 30’s (and the bad times before) also produced the people that caused WW2.
      - midoridensha 4y ago
        I'm not sure that follows at all. The people who were growing up in the 30s were much too young to be decision-makers during WWII (which itself started in the 30s, not the 40s, though Americans don't realize that because they entered the war late). They were barely able, if at all, to even fight in WWII. The people who caused WWII probably came of age around or before WWI. Hitler, for instance, was a low-level soldier during WWI. He wasn't a product of the 30s.
- zwkrt 4y ago
  That sounds nice but is there a case when 'strong men' created good times? The example that I see people gravitate toward here is how soldiers coming back from WW2 in the US 'created' a society of unprecedented prosperity. But this of course ignores almost every single external factor that precipitated this prosperity, ignores that the prosperity was for a minority of people (both in the US and /especially/ globally), and the fact that war does not in fact make people stronger but tends to break them down. Ask your nearest vet. This just sounds like a factoid upholding an antiquated ideal of masculinity.
  - carom 4y ago
    Masculinity is not an antiquated idea. It is an identity for a huge amount of the population and it is quite nice when you embrace it.
    - sanderjd 4y ago
      The comment you replied to didn't say that masculinity is an antiquated idea. It said that an ideal of masculinity is antiquated; that is, one particular ideal of masculinity, not the idea in its entirety. You may disagree with that too, which is fine, but it's a different thing than you responded to. Different people see themselves in different ideals of masculinity.
  - Izkata 4y ago
    It's the meme version of Strauss-Howe Generational Theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory?useskin=vector#Turnings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio...
  - akomtu 4y ago
    Why is everyone here so worried about masculinity? The "strong men" in that quote are those with strong will. Physical strength is secondary. The weak men are those with weak will. A successful enterprise, be it a company or an entire nation, always has a few of strong willed founders, with a vision and ability to inspire others. It creates prosperity for members of that enterprise. And every time such enterprises wither and die in the hands of weak willed risk-averse mediocrity.
- dekhn 4y ago
  Strong men also cry. Strong. Men. Also. Cry.
stephc_int13 4y ago
This delusion (of being an exceptional company) is always built on some truth at the start. And it is sad to see it vanishes. Hewlett-Packard used to be such a company, their products were exceptional on many levels. They had an incredible engineering culture and almost a cult following of users. Today they make crappy printers and what else? This is sad but I am not sure this arc can be avoided, success brings money and scale, and those are poison in the long run.
- ggm 4y ago
  This is so true. I used to notice HP connectors at all the Ultrasound pathology labs I'd go to, they'd engineered plugs for sensor devices to HPIB compatible wiring which worked with nitrile gloves, smeared with Ultrasound goop, at a size anyone could un-do, with knurled screw tighteners. Lots of things about HP didn't work for me but I never yet met an Ultrasound or Xray technician who said their GUI was borked for them. The market has moved on now but for a while there, if it was on a crash-cart in a hospital or related location, chances were it was HP.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >Hewlett-Packard used to be such a company, their products were exceptional on many levels. They had an incredible engineering culture and almost a cult following of users. Today they make crappy printers and what else? The company you're looking for is "Keysight" (formerly "Agilent"): it's what's left of HP's famous test & measurement division.
hypertele-Xii 4y ago
> their product bureaucracy was such that it would take them nine months to ship an empty box. They didn't ship an empty box though, did they? That's what the bureaucracy is partially designed to prevent. Can you imagine the reputation loss if some rogue company element actually shipped a branded empty box?
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  I think you missed the point there.
- Izkata 4y ago
  It's a metaphor to mean the bureaucracy is so bad it takes a long time to do nothing, not that they literally shipped an empty box by accident.
- ReflectedImage 4y ago
  I've seen branded empty boxes being shipped before. There were good financial reasons for it.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    Probably the most famous such event amongst this crowd would be the original Star Wars action figures. https://www.retrojunk.com/a/tlNWXQ9PQo/star-wars-figures-a-history https://www.retrojunk.com/a/tlNWXQ9PQo/star-wars-figures-a-h...
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

akomtu 4y ago

That's the good old saying: "Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. Weak men create hard times." ― G. Michael Hopf

jimduk 4y ago
Not sure it is a good saying. Brett Devereaux covers it in detail in his "fremen mirage" articles which I find a good read. https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/ https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-...
- AlbertCory 4y ago
  A strawman argument, which no one is actually saying: > Second: Consequently, people from these less settled societies are better fighters and more militarily capable than their settled or wealthier neighboring societies. > Third: That, consequently the poorer, harder people will inevitably overrun and subjugate the richer, more prosperous communities around them. I prefer real history to science fiction, myself. The 30s were indisputably hard times, but they produced the people who won WW II and went to the moon.
  - rebuilder 4y ago
    The 30’s (and the bad times before) also produced the people that caused WW2.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      I'm not sure that follows at all. The people who were growing up in the 30s were much too young to be decision-makers during WWII (which itself started in the 30s, not the 40s, though Americans don't realize that because they entered the war late). They were barely able, if at all, to even fight in WWII. The people who caused WWII probably came of age around or before WWI. Hitler, for instance, was a low-level soldier during WWI. He wasn't a product of the 30s.
zwkrt 4y ago
That sounds nice but is there a case when 'strong men' created good times? The example that I see people gravitate toward here is how soldiers coming back from WW2 in the US 'created' a society of unprecedented prosperity. But this of course ignores almost every single external factor that precipitated this prosperity, ignores that the prosperity was for a minority of people (both in the US and /especially/ globally), and the fact that war does not in fact make people stronger but tends to break them down. Ask your nearest vet. This just sounds like a factoid upholding an antiquated ideal of masculinity.
- carom 4y ago
  Masculinity is not an antiquated idea. It is an identity for a huge amount of the population and it is quite nice when you embrace it.
  - sanderjd 4y ago
    The comment you replied to didn't say that masculinity is an antiquated idea. It said that an ideal of masculinity is antiquated; that is, one particular ideal of masculinity, not the idea in its entirety. You may disagree with that too, which is fine, but it's a different thing than you responded to. Different people see themselves in different ideals of masculinity.
- Izkata 4y ago
  It's the meme version of Strauss-Howe Generational Theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generational_theory?useskin=vector#Turnings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss%E2%80%93Howe_generatio...
- akomtu 4y ago
  Why is everyone here so worried about masculinity? The "strong men" in that quote are those with strong will. Physical strength is secondary. The weak men are those with weak will. A successful enterprise, be it a company or an entire nation, always has a few of strong willed founders, with a vision and ability to inspire others. It creates prosperity for members of that enterprise. And every time such enterprises wither and die in the hands of weak willed risk-averse mediocrity.
dekhn 4y ago
Strong men also cry. Strong. Men. Also. Cry.

stephc_int13 4y ago

This delusion (of being an exceptional company) is always built on some truth at the start. And it is sad to see it vanishes. Hewlett-Packard used to be such a company, their products were exceptional on many levels. They had an incredible engineering culture and almost a cult following of users. Today they make crappy printers and what else? This is sad but I am not sure this arc can be avoided, success brings money and scale, and those are poison in the long run.

ggm 4y ago
This is so true. I used to notice HP connectors at all the Ultrasound pathology labs I'd go to, they'd engineered plugs for sensor devices to HPIB compatible wiring which worked with nitrile gloves, smeared with Ultrasound goop, at a size anyone could un-do, with knurled screw tighteners. Lots of things about HP didn't work for me but I never yet met an Ultrasound or Xray technician who said their GUI was borked for them. The market has moved on now but for a while there, if it was on a crash-cart in a hospital or related location, chances were it was HP.
midoridensha 4y ago
>Hewlett-Packard used to be such a company, their products were exceptional on many levels. They had an incredible engineering culture and almost a cult following of users. Today they make crappy printers and what else? The company you're looking for is "Keysight" (formerly "Agilent"): it's what's left of HP's famous test & measurement division.

hypertele-Xii 4y ago

> their product bureaucracy was such that it would take them nine months to ship an empty box. They didn't ship an empty box though, did they? That's what the bureaucracy is partially designed to prevent. Can you imagine the reputation loss if some rogue company element actually shipped a branded empty box?

AlbertCory 4y ago
I think you missed the point there.
Izkata 4y ago
It's a metaphor to mean the bureaucracy is so bad it takes a long time to do nothing, not that they literally shipped an empty box by accident.
ReflectedImage 4y ago
I've seen branded empty boxes being shipped before. There were good financial reasons for it.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  Probably the most famous such event amongst this crowd would be the original Star Wars action figures. https://www.retrojunk.com/a/tlNWXQ9PQo/star-wars-figures-a-history https://www.retrojunk.com/a/tlNWXQ9PQo/star-wars-figures-a-h...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]