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I can't believe this theory is so widespread. There's no high level conspiracy to hire people to keep them away from competitors, such a thing could not be kept
by creato 4y ago
I can't believe this theory is so widespread. There's no high level conspiracy to hire people to keep them away from competitors, such a thing could not be kept secret, and it's a ridiculously expensive thing to do (even for a FAANG) for extremely dubious value that might be realized a decade down the road and no real way to know if it's working.
Bullshit jobs exist because mid level managers are very averse to killing projects or firing low performers, because that would shrink their fiefdom. That basically only ever happens when there is extreme pressure (e.g. layoffs).
Layoffs happen in clusters because even a few layoffs greatly increase the leverage employers have, and as soon as they have a little leverage, a layoff looks better than it would otherwise, so it's a positive feedback loop.
This is a much, much simpler and realistic explanation than "a grand conspiracy of media monopolies and regulatory capture is cheaper than hungry hungry hippoing all the engineers".
- marcus_holmes 4y agoAgree. I've never heard a manager say "we should keep this person because otherwise they'll go and create a competitor who will cause us problems". I have heard lots of managers say "yeah, I know they're not performing well, but I don't want to reduce headcount right before budget allocation, can we manage around them?" (or something to that effect). In my MBA course we even talked about this as a thing - that mid-level managers create fiefdoms, and the effects that has on the organisation culture. There are lots of other effects on the organisation from this, too.
- jongjong 4y agoI don't think it requires explicit conspiring. I don't think the corporate executives who make decisions are necessarily aware of this effect. For the most part, it's probably a case of "this strategy seems to have been working so far, or at least it's not a problem, so let's keep doing it... And the people over at McKinsey insist this is the right way."
- mikewarot 4y ago>it's a ridiculously expensive thing to do (even for a FAANG) If you can raise (or borrow at 0% interest) Billions of dollars, it makes sense, and is a dirt cheap thing to do. It keeps all the people you've hired from becoming your competitors, and you might even profit from their work in the mean while.