5 ms·

The weak non-apology aside, I can guarantee that this person does not feel a shred of sorrow. This is how the vast majority of CEOs think. You can see her sheer

The weak non-apology aside, I can guarantee that this person does not feel a shred of sorrow. This is how the vast majority of CEOs think. You can see her sheer frustration at 0:55 in the video, she's so genuinely affronted that her employees would dare to ask about bonuses that her speech speeds up considerably. This is to be expected. Typical power structures, especially those in corporate America favor the promotion of liars, backstabbers, cheats, and controlling people to leadership positions at a far higher rate than calm, friendly, nice ones. This goes doubly so now that workers have a bit more power -- remember that outside tech, the job market is still pretty tight for employers, similar to 2021. Honestly, following Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy, anyone who is capable of getting themselves into a leadership position should on no account be allowed to do the job. If you want to change this, there are few options -- but a good one is to stop rewarding these assholes with your money. I am going to avoid Herman Miller as much as I can in the future for personal or professional furniture.

slater 4y ago
They're only ever sorry they were caught.
- drewcoo 4y ago
  She's also sorry you're still paying attention. Can we just get on with it now? ;-)
maxbond 4y ago
I think something people in this community should consider is incorporating their ventures in more equitable and democratic ways (as B corps, as worker's cooperatives, etc). It won't be possible for everyone (particularly people relying on angel funding, who will presumably be met with great skepticism) but I think it may be possible to create some new expectations about how a company runs, and that small worker's coops may have an advantage in tech. Tech requires lots of cross-disciplinary cooperation, so I think small, flat co-ops may come to better decisions faster and have an advantage over other firms.
monero-xmr 4y ago
Her speech didn’t bother me at all. Company needs to make money and apparently it isn’t, yet people still want bonuses. Pay them and hurt the company, or don’t pay but maybe lose your best employees. This is why only a few people are capable of running companies. The reality of profit and loss - aka “math” - is too much for most people.
- mcphage 4y ago
  > This is why only a few people are capable of running companies. The reality of profit and loss - aka “math” - is too much for most people. Who are you claiming here is capable of running a company because the reality of profit and loss isn't too much? The person receiving over $3m in bonuses despite the her company "needs to make money and apparently isn't"? It sure seems to me like she's one of those people who "still want bonuses".
- antonvs 4y ago
  > The reality of profit and loss - aka “math” - is too much for most people. If it was just math, a lot more people would be better at it. But your own statement shows how there’s much more to it than math: “Pay them and hurt the company, or don’t pay but maybe lose your best employees.” No math is going to tell you how to decide that situation. And business is full of such decisions, which collectively can make or break a company.
  - monero-xmr 4y ago
    The commentary around this frames the situation that cold hearted capitalists don’t understand the feelings of employees. Or some sort of emotional issue. The reality is the company is failing, can’t pay people what you don’t have.
    - quadrifoliate 4y ago
      > The commentary around this frames the situation that cold hearted capitalists don’t understand the feelings of employees. Or some sort of emotional issue. Uh, not really. The only one emotions we are talking about here are the CEO's, and how they are impacting communication with employees. > The reality is the company is failing, can’t pay people what you don’t have. There are good ways to communicate this reality to your employees. If you think what the CEO did is a good way, then I wish you good luck.
devjab 4y ago
Do you have any sort of sources to back those claims up? I’m not American, and I can only speak from anecdotal experience from the Danish digitalisation sector, both public and private, but I’ve never met a CEO or any sort of manager they match your description. A few were assholes, more (managers) were incompetent but none of them were backstabbers, liars or cheats, because you genuinely can’t lead people if you are. This of course doesn’t apply to a lot of other lines of work, we recently had a grocery delivery where the drivers phone had malfunctioned, so I lend him mine to call his company while I tried to tech-support his. Long story short, I overheard some of the stuff he was told by his company and it was literal basic stuff like “remember to be really nice and say thank you” in a much more demeaning manner. The driver had already been way nicer than what they told them to be, but he kept the phone call open while I was thanked again… So there are certainly businesses where the company policy is to treat employees like shit. But I haven’t met those managers, so I can speak for them, and the ones I have met got there for various reasons where the worst was that they were the only ones they wanted the position. The CEOs I’ve met either came from money or made money from starting another company, then using that money to build a new one. Or they were hired through a tough process with a lot of competition. Only one was an asshole, and he still wouldn’t lie, cheat or backstab, but he would behave like an asshole, and mostly get away with it. It was while I worked in the public sector where we had municipality owned cars with designated parking spots, and he would park in one and refuse to leave. He’d also walk over people in meetings, if they let him, but that situation should frankly never arise. What I have encountered, and this is partly because I did a stint in management (and the necessary education that you’ll typically be required to get in Denmark if you’re promoted into management) before I went back to being a programmer as I hated managing people, was that management lives in a different world than employees as well as being an employee themselves. I think this is a video of someone who forgot that there are two worlds, and also someone who maybe forgot (or never learned) about motivational theory, and well, how to communicate with dignity and respect, but at the end of the day, an organisation has goals and CEOs and managers are responsible for reaching those goals with the resources they are given. One or the first things you’ll learn in MBA type studies is that everyone is expendable, it’s only a question of how much it’ll cost to lose them. You can see this as a negative thing, but it can mean a lot of things. In programming it tells a manager to encourage their employees to build code in a manner that’s not too dependent on its authors. We do this by employing various principles for coding standard and documentation because if we don’t, it gets really expensive when someone quits. I personally think it’s a good thing to learn as an employee as well, because it’s healthy to keep a distance from your job and your personality, so that you can better be an employee and also a person and not have that melt too much together so that it gets soul crushing for you when you get fired. Which you probably will, and often not for any reasons you could help. That being said. I get that this “pity city” was an eureka moment for her, but how hilarious is it that she didn’t consider how it sounded to non managers?

slater 4y ago

They're only ever sorry they were caught.

drewcoo 4y ago
She's also sorry you're still paying attention. Can we just get on with it now? ;-)

maxbond 4y ago

I think something people in this community should consider is incorporating their ventures in more equitable and democratic ways (as B corps, as worker's cooperatives, etc). It won't be possible for everyone (particularly people relying on angel funding, who will presumably be met with great skepticism) but I think it may be possible to create some new expectations about how a company runs, and that small worker's coops may have an advantage in tech. Tech requires lots of cross-disciplinary cooperation, so I think small, flat co-ops may come to better decisions faster and have an advantage over other firms.

monero-xmr 4y ago

Her speech didn’t bother me at all. Company needs to make money and apparently it isn’t, yet people still want bonuses. Pay them and hurt the company, or don’t pay but maybe lose your best employees. This is why only a few people are capable of running companies. The reality of profit and loss - aka “math” - is too much for most people.

mcphage 4y ago
> This is why only a few people are capable of running companies. The reality of profit and loss - aka “math” - is too much for most people. Who are you claiming here is capable of running a company because the reality of profit and loss isn't too much? The person receiving over $3m in bonuses despite the her company "needs to make money and apparently isn't"? It sure seems to me like she's one of those people who "still want bonuses".
antonvs 4y ago
> The reality of profit and loss - aka “math” - is too much for most people. If it was just math, a lot more people would be better at it. But your own statement shows how there’s much more to it than math: “Pay them and hurt the company, or don’t pay but maybe lose your best employees.” No math is going to tell you how to decide that situation. And business is full of such decisions, which collectively can make or break a company.
- monero-xmr 4y ago
  The commentary around this frames the situation that cold hearted capitalists don’t understand the feelings of employees. Or some sort of emotional issue. The reality is the company is failing, can’t pay people what you don’t have.
  - quadrifoliate 4y ago
    > The commentary around this frames the situation that cold hearted capitalists don’t understand the feelings of employees. Or some sort of emotional issue. Uh, not really. The only one emotions we are talking about here are the CEO's, and how they are impacting communication with employees. > The reality is the company is failing, can’t pay people what you don’t have. There are good ways to communicate this reality to your employees. If you think what the CEO did is a good way, then I wish you good luck.

devjab 4y ago

Do you have any sort of sources to back those claims up? I’m not American, and I can only speak from anecdotal experience from the Danish digitalisation sector, both public and private, but I’ve never met a CEO or any sort of manager they match your description. A few were assholes, more (managers) were incompetent but none of them were backstabbers, liars or cheats, because you genuinely can’t lead people if you are. This of course doesn’t apply to a lot of other lines of work, we recently had a grocery delivery where the drivers phone had malfunctioned, so I lend him mine to call his company while I tried to tech-support his. Long story short, I overheard some of the stuff he was told by his company and it was literal basic stuff like “remember to be really nice and say thank you” in a much more demeaning manner. The driver had already been way nicer than what they told them to be, but he kept the phone call open while I was thanked again… So there are certainly businesses where the company policy is to treat employees like shit. But I haven’t met those managers, so I can speak for them, and the ones I have met got there for various reasons where the worst was that they were the only ones they wanted the position. The CEOs I’ve met either came from money or made money from starting another company, then using that money to build a new one. Or they were hired through a tough process with a lot of competition. Only one was an asshole, and he still wouldn’t lie, cheat or backstab, but he would behave like an asshole, and mostly get away with it. It was while I worked in the public sector where we had municipality owned cars with designated parking spots, and he would park in one and refuse to leave. He’d also walk over people in meetings, if they let him, but that situation should frankly never arise. What I have encountered, and this is partly because I did a stint in management (and the necessary education that you’ll typically be required to get in Denmark if you’re promoted into management) before I went back to being a programmer as I hated managing people, was that management lives in a different world than employees as well as being an employee themselves. I think this is a video of someone who forgot that there are two worlds, and also someone who maybe forgot (or never learned) about motivational theory, and well, how to communicate with dignity and respect, but at the end of the day, an organisation has goals and CEOs and managers are responsible for reaching those goals with the resources they are given. One or the first things you’ll learn in MBA type studies is that everyone is expendable, it’s only a question of how much it’ll cost to lose them. You can see this as a negative thing, but it can mean a lot of things. In programming it tells a manager to encourage their employees to build code in a manner that’s not too dependent on its authors. We do this by employing various principles for coding standard and documentation because if we don’t, it gets really expensive when someone quits. I personally think it’s a good thing to learn as an employee as well, because it’s healthy to keep a distance from your job and your personality, so that you can better be an employee and also a person and not have that melt too much together so that it gets soul crushing for you when you get fired. Which you probably will, and often not for any reasons you could help. That being said. I get that this “pity city” was an eureka moment for her, but how hilarious is it that she didn’t consider how it sounded to non managers?