5 ms·

Zuck credits Elon with kicking off trend of firing middle managers

6 points by tim_sw 3y ago

pinewurst 3y ago
https://archive.ph/krMzN https://archive.ph/krMzN
activiation 3y ago
2000 employees is still probably way too much for twitter
jleyank 3y ago
Militaries for centuries have found that 10 people is the maximum effective size one leader can control (a squad). Given that, and when avoiding middle managers, that makes the max effective size of a company as about 100 people. Guess meta has a whole lot more people to whack.
- BulgarianIdiot 3y ago
  Absolutely. Of course how many people you can control depends on the nature of their work and and your mutual communication. Say I bet one could control directly more, say, sanitary workers, than software developers.
  - version_five 3y ago
    > Say I bet one could control directly more, say, sanitary workers, than software developers Why? On, say an bigger open source project, what is the ratio of "management" to contributors like? If people understand their goals and have the right incentives and autonomy, very little management is necessary. On the other hand low skill workers need much more managing, both to make sure they do they job and to coordinate their work. Surely not as much management as modern tech thinks it needs, but the army heuristic of 10 people on a crew seems much more applicable here. If you're paying someone to empty garbage or whatever, you're almost certainly not paying them to think, or care much about their work, so that has to be supplied separately. That's just my opinion, what did you mean in your comment?
    - BulgarianIdiot 3y ago
      Think of it as threads stepping over each other modifying and reading the same mutable state, vs threads that work in their own sandbox and share mostly immutable state. The former require a lot more alignment and synchronization. Software has a lot more “shared state” and “ad hoc” decision making than say a sanitary worker each taking a floor in an office building and doing the same thing they do every time. Discipline and control is another matter. I was assuming everyone is acting in good faith.
BulgarianIdiot 3y ago
Elon didn't simply fire middle managers. Zuckerberg's statement is just another example of public figures hearing and saying what benefits them personally. So I guess Zuckerberg wanted to make it comfortable for himself to fire middle managers.
keernan 3y ago
'Zuck' and 'Elon' ? seriously? ... that's so off putting... as though they were everyone's best friends.
mindcrash 3y ago
This is probably a very unpopular opinion but I really would like to see Zuck firing himself and shutting down Facebook and Instagram, Elon firing himself and shutting down Twitter and Spez firing himself and shutting down Reddit. Partly thanks to the services they are running the World Wide Web turned into a ego and rage infested shithole. And I really want to see the clock turned back to the fun place it was around the year 2000. Also Jared Lanier: https://mindful.technology/jaron-lanier-delete-social-media/ https://mindful.technology/jaron-lanier-delete-social-media/

6 points by tim_sw 3y ago

pinewurst 3y ago

https://archive.ph/krMzN https://archive.ph/krMzN

activiation 3y ago

2000 employees is still probably way too much for twitter

jleyank 3y ago

Militaries for centuries have found that 10 people is the maximum effective size one leader can control (a squad). Given that, and when avoiding middle managers, that makes the max effective size of a company as about 100 people. Guess meta has a whole lot more people to whack.

BulgarianIdiot 3y ago
Absolutely. Of course how many people you can control depends on the nature of their work and and your mutual communication. Say I bet one could control directly more, say, sanitary workers, than software developers.
- version_five 3y ago
  > Say I bet one could control directly more, say, sanitary workers, than software developers Why? On, say an bigger open source project, what is the ratio of "management" to contributors like? If people understand their goals and have the right incentives and autonomy, very little management is necessary. On the other hand low skill workers need much more managing, both to make sure they do they job and to coordinate their work. Surely not as much management as modern tech thinks it needs, but the army heuristic of 10 people on a crew seems much more applicable here. If you're paying someone to empty garbage or whatever, you're almost certainly not paying them to think, or care much about their work, so that has to be supplied separately. That's just my opinion, what did you mean in your comment?
  - BulgarianIdiot 3y ago
    Think of it as threads stepping over each other modifying and reading the same mutable state, vs threads that work in their own sandbox and share mostly immutable state. The former require a lot more alignment and synchronization. Software has a lot more “shared state” and “ad hoc” decision making than say a sanitary worker each taking a floor in an office building and doing the same thing they do every time. Discipline and control is another matter. I was assuming everyone is acting in good faith.

BulgarianIdiot 3y ago

Elon didn't simply fire middle managers. Zuckerberg's statement is just another example of public figures hearing and saying what benefits them personally. So I guess Zuckerberg wanted to make it comfortable for himself to fire middle managers.

keernan 3y ago

'Zuck' and 'Elon' ? seriously? ... that's so off putting... as though they were everyone's best friends.

mindcrash 3y ago

This is probably a very unpopular opinion but I really would like to see Zuck firing himself and shutting down Facebook and Instagram, Elon firing himself and shutting down Twitter and Spez firing himself and shutting down Reddit. Partly thanks to the services they are running the World Wide Web turned into a ego and rage infested shithole. And I really want to see the clock turned back to the fun place it was around the year 2000. Also Jared Lanier: https://mindful.technology/jaron-lanier-delete-social-media/ https://mindful.technology/jaron-lanier-delete-social-media/