6 ms·

Explaining tech's notion of talent scarcity

74 points by dcreager 3y ago

sleepytimetea 3y ago
Our malicious website filters prevent access to this domain - is it legit ?
- cyanf 3y ago
  It looks fine to me.
- depressedpanda 3y ago
  Yes.
- mgkimsal 3y ago
  Probably just because of the .xyz domain? But yeah, per the other comment, it seems fine.
- waboremo 3y ago
  Your filters might have rules about .xyz. Otherwise it's legit, the only connections it makes are to google tag manager and google fonts, loads ~220kb, and works without javascript enabled. Hard to be malicious without javascript! But for any domain you're unsure about, you should likely try a sandbox to get a definitive answer for yourself.
- mometsi 3y ago
  More likely: your incompetent website filters prevent access to this domain.
GalenErso 3y ago
A similar debate exists within the professional military community about the appropriate place to give special operations forces within the broader force. There is a concern, especially in the United States, where special forces have accrued a growing share of resources and personnel since the beginning of the global war on terror, that such growth is draining regular forces of all their top personnel and thus hollowing the regular units they rely on. https://cco.ndu.edu/News/Article/1020184/the-limits-of-special-operations-forces/ https://cco.ndu.edu/News/Article/1020184/the-limits-of-speci... https://ndupress.ndu.edu/JFQ/Joint-Force-Quarterly-108/Article/Article/3264605/americas-special-operations-problem/ https://ndupress.ndu.edu/JFQ/Joint-Force-Quarterly-108/Artic... https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/gahsnv/does_having_special_forces_make_an_army_on_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/gahsnv/does_hav...
- tomrod 3y ago
  In careers, positively-contributing people are motivated by three things: money, team, and perceived importance of work.
  - throwaway5959 3y ago
    What about 0 and negatively contributing?
vavooom 3y ago
A competent overview of the relative ‘bins’ of labor used to power large firms around the world. The use of distributions really tickles my brain and helps understand not only where I work but also why some people love the places the work (because it fits into their style and desired work environment too).
wootland 3y ago
This doesn't say much about "talent scarcity", it's more along the lines of how different managerial styles map to different talent "markets". In reality, there is no talent scarcity, there's just poor management that has optimized for executive salaries and middle-managerial busy work. Paying your managers/executives more than your engineers, forcing wfo, open office plans, agile... all chase away top talent of which there is plenty. The shortage is actually of healthy, creative, non-toxic, fairly compensated work places. Deliver that and the talent is easy to hire and retain.
- danielovichdk 3y ago
  I wholeheartedly concur. Thanks for putting it into writing.
- yamtaddle 3y ago
  I think a lot of the friction is upper-middle or middle-but-anxiously-trying-to-claim-upper-middle (in a class sense—income's related to, but not identical to, class, in this analysis, following Fussell) management not wanting their reports to have equal or greater standing, in social status terms. Probably this treating programmers as a status-threat dates to the merging of high-status analyst and low-status programmer into a single role, way back in the 80s—there was little threat with a few upper-middle or near-upper-middle analysts running around, but increase the total number of people in programming and merge "analyst" and "programmer" and now there are too many, and no-one to be "under" them in status, and what's the point of status if you don't have inferior people to lord it over? If there's nobody you can credibly boss around or tell to take care of some bullshit for you, and expect them to just say "yes" and do it without pushing back? Nobody to do the actual work while you're "working" at the golf course or goofing off in your private office! Clearly, that would be a threat—why, they might all get dragged down to bottom-tier status, if there's no one under them!
  - polygamous_bat 3y ago
    One bit of corpo-speak that I have seen cropping up to address this is relabeling "managed by" as "supported by", as in, "team X will be supported by person Y." It may not work overnight, but I would like to see a shift in the culture of a manager "managing" like a king manages his kingdom and the peasants within, to "supporting", like a coordinator. But I fear that we will fall back to the ape mentality of hierarchies and end up twisting the words to fit our predetermined outcomes.
timfsu 3y ago
One of the interesting things in this article is how OKRs are great for a "Pareto-distribution" culture, where performance can be measured across employees, but not a "linchpin" culture, where employees are exceptionally good at a small handful of things and not necessarily great at doing whatever the company needs. I've frequently seen those two types of cultures clash at the seams between technology and business.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
auggierose 3y ago
I don't get it. How are the distribution graphs connected to the text? What is distributed over? I guess the people of the company? What is the y-axis? The amount of talent in a person? The amount of special talent in a person? I hate pseudo-scientific explanations like that.
- stopnamingnuts 3y ago
  It's not you. The article relies on a bullshit method of making its simple point, deliberately overcomplicating it for the purpose of signalling.
syngrog66 3y ago
I see companies ignoring or actively scaring away talent left and right.
rektide 3y ago
This has been sitting with me for a couple hours now. The impact was semi subtle at first but has really grown as I keep reflecting how much better it fits my personal view. The Bimodal model really reflects a lived truth, that explains things differently than Normal or Pareto curves. Some people aren't just higher output but are fulcrums of the business, are core drivers.
musicale 3y ago
Tech's notion of talent scarcity: 1. "We can't find enough cheap labor to work at our awful jobs." 2. "We're doing everything we can possibly do attract talent (except for raising wages, which is of course impossible.)" 3. "Never mind, we don't need human workers anyway."

74 points by dcreager 3y ago

sleepytimetea 3y ago

Our malicious website filters prevent access to this domain - is it legit ?

cyanf 3y ago
It looks fine to me.
depressedpanda 3y ago
Yes.
mgkimsal 3y ago
Probably just because of the .xyz domain? But yeah, per the other comment, it seems fine.
waboremo 3y ago
Your filters might have rules about .xyz. Otherwise it's legit, the only connections it makes are to google tag manager and google fonts, loads ~220kb, and works without javascript enabled. Hard to be malicious without javascript! But for any domain you're unsure about, you should likely try a sandbox to get a definitive answer for yourself.
mometsi 3y ago
More likely: your incompetent website filters prevent access to this domain.

GalenErso 3y ago

A similar debate exists within the professional military community about the appropriate place to give special operations forces within the broader force. There is a concern, especially in the United States, where special forces have accrued a growing share of resources and personnel since the beginning of the global war on terror, that such growth is draining regular forces of all their top personnel and thus hollowing the regular units they rely on. https://cco.ndu.edu/News/Article/1020184/the-limits-of-special-operations-forces/ https://cco.ndu.edu/News/Article/1020184/the-limits-of-speci... https://ndupress.ndu.edu/JFQ/Joint-Force-Quarterly-108/Article/Article/3264605/americas-special-operations-problem/ https://ndupress.ndu.edu/JFQ/Joint-Force-Quarterly-108/Artic... https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/gahsnv/does_having_special_forces_make_an_army_on_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/gahsnv/does_hav...

tomrod 3y ago
In careers, positively-contributing people are motivated by three things: money, team, and perceived importance of work.
- throwaway5959 3y ago
  What about 0 and negatively contributing?

vavooom 3y ago

A competent overview of the relative ‘bins’ of labor used to power large firms around the world. The use of distributions really tickles my brain and helps understand not only where I work but also why some people love the places the work (because it fits into their style and desired work environment too).

wootland 3y ago

This doesn't say much about "talent scarcity", it's more along the lines of how different managerial styles map to different talent "markets". In reality, there is no talent scarcity, there's just poor management that has optimized for executive salaries and middle-managerial busy work. Paying your managers/executives more than your engineers, forcing wfo, open office plans, agile... all chase away top talent of which there is plenty. The shortage is actually of healthy, creative, non-toxic, fairly compensated work places. Deliver that and the talent is easy to hire and retain.

danielovichdk 3y ago
I wholeheartedly concur. Thanks for putting it into writing.
yamtaddle 3y ago
I think a lot of the friction is upper-middle or middle-but-anxiously-trying-to-claim-upper-middle (in a class sense—income's related to, but not identical to, class, in this analysis, following Fussell) management not wanting their reports to have equal or greater standing, in social status terms. Probably this treating programmers as a status-threat dates to the merging of high-status analyst and low-status programmer into a single role, way back in the 80s—there was little threat with a few upper-middle or near-upper-middle analysts running around, but increase the total number of people in programming and merge "analyst" and "programmer" and now there are too many, and no-one to be "under" them in status, and what's the point of status if you don't have inferior people to lord it over? If there's nobody you can credibly boss around or tell to take care of some bullshit for you, and expect them to just say "yes" and do it without pushing back? Nobody to do the actual work while you're "working" at the golf course or goofing off in your private office! Clearly, that would be a threat—why, they might all get dragged down to bottom-tier status, if there's no one under them!
- polygamous_bat 3y ago
  One bit of corpo-speak that I have seen cropping up to address this is relabeling "managed by" as "supported by", as in, "team X will be supported by person Y." It may not work overnight, but I would like to see a shift in the culture of a manager "managing" like a king manages his kingdom and the peasants within, to "supporting", like a coordinator. But I fear that we will fall back to the ape mentality of hierarchies and end up twisting the words to fit our predetermined outcomes.

timfsu 3y ago

One of the interesting things in this article is how OKRs are great for a "Pareto-distribution" culture, where performance can be measured across employees, but not a "linchpin" culture, where employees are exceptionally good at a small handful of things and not necessarily great at doing whatever the company needs. I've frequently seen those two types of cultures clash at the seams between technology and business.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

auggierose 3y ago

I don't get it. How are the distribution graphs connected to the text? What is distributed over? I guess the people of the company? What is the y-axis? The amount of talent in a person? The amount of special talent in a person? I hate pseudo-scientific explanations like that.

stopnamingnuts 3y ago
It's not you. The article relies on a bullshit method of making its simple point, deliberately overcomplicating it for the purpose of signalling.

syngrog66 3y ago

I see companies ignoring or actively scaring away talent left and right.

rektide 3y ago

This has been sitting with me for a couple hours now. The impact was semi subtle at first but has really grown as I keep reflecting how much better it fits my personal view. The Bimodal model really reflects a lived truth, that explains things differently than Normal or Pareto curves. Some people aren't just higher output but are fulcrums of the business, are core drivers.

musicale 3y ago

Tech's notion of talent scarcity: 1. "We can't find enough cheap labor to work at our awful jobs." 2. "We're doing everything we can possibly do attract talent (except for raising wages, which is of course impossible.)" 3. "Never mind, we don't need human workers anyway."